DU623 
.S834 




DO 623 
■S834 










il0f 



HON JOHN I.JC.WITT STEVENS was bom i„ Mt. Vernon, Maine, in l8j o 
He was editor for man, years of the Kennebec foumal, a leading political new* 

; ,- or ,.a,„, , gg, he waa appo . nted hv pres . dent H:|r ..j ]i M . nister 

'" Hawanan Islands, his title soon after being changed to that of .Minister Plen- 
Mr. Steven, had the degree ofU, D. conferred npon him byTnft'sCol 



RICHES AND MARVELS 

...OF... 

HAWAII 



A CHARMING DESCRIPTION OF 

Her Unique History, Strange People, Exquisite Climate, 
Wondrous Volcanoes, Luxurious Productions, 
Beautiful Cities, Corrupt Monarchy, Rev- 
olution, Provisional Government 
and Annexation. 



...BY... 

HON. JOHN L. STEVENS, Ex-U. S. Minister, 

'J ...AND... 

PROF. W. B. OLESON, of Honolulu, 

15 Years President of Kahemahema College. 



Profusely Enriched with Rare and Beautiful Photographs, 

ILLUSTRATING EVERY PHASE OF LIFE AND SCENERY IN THOSE MARVELLOUS ISLANDS J WITH 
PLANATIONS OF EACH PREPARED 

BY MISS NELLIE; WL. STEVENS. 



PHILADELPHIA, PA.: 
EDGEWOOD PUBLISHING COMPANY, Publishers. 



Copyrighted by the Edgf.wood Publishing Co., 1900. 

L 



TWO COPIES HASCBWBQ, 

LJbrary of Congrtf% 
Offlco o f the 

AP* S - 1900 

Keglttor of Copyright* 



56ii70 






- 



y SECOND COPY, 

n WD 



\ 









LIST OF SUBJECTS 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 



Discovery of the Islands. 
Ancient Canoe Journeys. 
Origin of Hawaiians. 
An Ancient Race. 
The Common People. 
The Priesthood. 
System of Tabu. 
Social Customs. 
Future Life. 
Bones of the Chiefs. 
Sorcery. 

Disastrous Wars. 
Cook's Discovery. 
Proximity to America. 
Size of the Group. 
Captain Cook's Death. 



Worshipped as a God. 
Vancouver's Visits. 
British Protectorate. 
Kamehameha the Great. 
His Enterprise. 
His Personal Prowess. 
His Conquest of the Group. 
Centralizing Policy. 
Distilling Rum. 
His Death. 
Idolatry Abolished. 
Coming of the Missionaries. 
Destruction of Idols. 
Kapiolani's Heroism. 
Missionary Success. 
The Hope of Hawaii. 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 



The Kanaka. 

Occupation of Kanakas. 

Ease in Gaining a Livelihood. 

Principal Food Staple. 

Value and Productiveness of Taro. 

Native Indolence. 

Luxurious Kanakai. 

Preparation of Poi. 

The Hawaiian not a Farmer. 

Master of Wind and Wave. 

The Sea His Schoolmaster. 

Rare Ingenuity. 

Superstitious but Brave. 

Kanakas as Cow-Boys. 

Hawaiian Horse Women. 

Hawaiian Visiting. 

Dwellings. 

Hospitality. 

A Native Feast. 

Preparation for a Feast. 



Action, but Reaction. 

Fondness for Nature. 

Guiding Principle in All Feasts. 

Come, Let Us Eat. 

Eat, Drink and Be Merry. 

Hawaiian Swimmers. 

Surf-Bathing. 

Lost Arts. 

Clothed, and in His Right Mind. 

The Flower Girls. 

A Genuine Politician. 

Decrease of Hawaiians. 

Half-Castes. 

Amalgamation. 

Growth of Foreign Element. 

Causes of Decrease. 

Ability to Read and Write.. 

American Sentiment. 

Religion. 

Hawaiians and New Hawaii. 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 

Liquid Sunshine. Foreign Enterprise. 

Equable Climate. Beneficent Mission of American Capital. 

Healthfulness. » Labor Problems. 

Indigenous Plants. Co-operative Cane Planting. 

Ownership, of Land. Leasehold System. 

Land* Awards. Cane Fields. 

Crown Lands. Sugar Making. 

,-. .. (5) 



6 



LIST OF SUBJECTS. 



Rice Growing. 
Coffee Gro ■ 

Reciprocity Tre 
Benefits to the United S 



-ii. 
:-n Unmixed Blessing. 
Commercial Importance. 
Political Importance. 



HONOLULU AND OTHER PLACES OE INTEREST. 



Honolulu, the Capital. 

Glimpse of Honolulu. 
Bird's- Eye 
Honolulu from the 
Genius of the Foreigner. 
Size of Honolulu. 
Public Buiii 
Public Works. 
Population of Honolulu. 
Portuguese Colony. 

re Resorts. 
Chariu: e 1 .. -tions. 

nistration of Justice. 



Education. 

ion. 
Harbor of Honolulu. 
Street Scenes. 
The Garden Isle. 
The Leper Colony. 
Liberal Treatment of Lepers. 
The Valley : 1 ea ... 
Off to V 
Lahaina and the Whale Trade 

i-.vard Hav 
Beautiful Hilo. 
C: : . r.r.ut li'.zwz. 



VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 



Volcanic Origin, 

:.:st. 
Depth of Surrounding 
Artesian B; 

Sudsidence and Upheaval 
Relative Age of Islands. 
World Building. 
Mokuaweoweo. the Terrible. 
Great Interior Plain. 
The Lava Flow of 1 5 f 5 . 
The Lava Flow of 1 S 
The Lava Flow of 1880. 
The Hilo Viaduct. 



The Forges of Vulcan. 

Floe >f the r-ter. 

The Lake c ' Fire. 

The Goddess Pele. 

At Closer Range. 

Remarkable Disappearance of Fires, 

Sulphur De 

From Chaos to Para I 

Ea:-.:.:u.-:-:es : :' 1 868. 

Legen 1 ::' Ha ai 

He ..then Oblations. 



THE HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 



Kamehameha's Arbitrary R: 

Reaction Sets In. 

Growth of Political" Privilege. 

Basi> of Politic 

The First Constitution. 

Constitution of 1 

Perils from Without. 

French Aggressions. 

English Aggressions. 

Real Intent of Foreign Interference. 

Effect of Foreign Interference. 

Return to Autocratic Rule. 

Constitution of 1 x 



tion of Lepers. 
Annexation Sentiment. 
Elective Kings. 

ana Unpopular. 
Political Effect of Rec 
Hawaii for Hawaiians. 
Revival of Heathenism. 
Debasing the Electorate. 
I - - 
m Movement. 
1887 
Queen Liliuokalani. 

. Sequence of Events. 



EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 
Ignominious Failure. Counter Revolution. 

Provisional Governme 







C. B. WILSON.— Mr. C. B. Wilson was brought into prominence during the 
recent revolution in Hawaii from being chief marshal under the monarchial govern- 
ment, and the strong personal friend of the ex-Queen. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



A Group cf Natives Beating the Taro Plant into Flour . . . .51 

Alligator Pears , • 95 

Along the Wailuku River ......... t . 29 

Boiling Crater of a Volcano . . . . . . . . k . 183 

Beautiful Palms 105 

Captain Gilbert C. Wiltse 271 

Cocoanut Palms . . . . . . . . . . . . .111 

C. B. Wilson 7 

Doomed to Death . . . . . . . . . . . 2j 

Doctor McGrew's Residence .......... J39 

Ex-Queen Liliuokalani . . . . . . . . . . .281 

Great Rush of Boiling Lava into the Water ....... 193 

Gathering of the Cane . . . . . . . . . • . 117 

Government Building ............ 2S7 

Hawaiian Hotel ............. 149 

Hon. John Leavitt Stevens ........... 2 

Hawaiian Picnic ............. 61 

Hula Girls 67 

Hon. Lorrin A. Thurston . . . . . . . . . . 315 

Iolani Palace 227 

Judge Wideman's Residence . . . . . . . . . -155 

J. A. Cummings ............. 17 

Kauai, the River Waimea ........... 265 

Kaneohe Valley ............. 199 

Mausoleum of Lunalilo ........... 39 

Making Poi ............. 73 

Mangoes ............... 127 

Natives with their Surf Boards S3 

Night-Blooming Cereus . . . . . . . . . . . 133 

Princess Kaiulani ............ 237 

Picnic Grounds of Hilo 221 

Prof. W. B. Alexander 325 

Papaia Tree 243 

Queen Kapiolani . 331 

(9) 



10 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Residence of C. R. Bishop . 
Residence of Mr. Waterhouse 
Steamer Australia 
Services at Oahu Prison 
Sanford Ballard Dole . 
The Provisional Government 
The Lava Bed of Hawaii . 
The Hawaiian Woman in Pau 
The Flower Women of Honolulu 
Troops Drilling in the Government 
Tree Ferns .... 

The Great Crater of Kilauea 
The Present Seat of Government 
Umbrella Tree .... 



Square 



I AGS 
I69 
171 

337 
45 
293 
3 r J 
2C-5 

S9 
177 
3°9 
249 

215 
3-7 
259 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 



DISCOVERY OF THE ISLANDS. The visit of Capt. 
Cook to the Hawaiian Islands in 1778, from which time 
their discovery is commonly reckoned, was not by any 
means the first appearance of white men on those Islands. 
There are well authenticated Spanish charts of the Pacific, 
on which appear a group of islands in the latitude of the 
Hawaiian group, although ten degrees of longitude too far 
east. This discrepancy is accounted for by the dependence 
of those early navigators on "dead reckoning" for their 
longitude, chronometers not having then been invented. 
It is well known that the Spaniards were the earliest navi- 
gators of the Pacific, and there is a general agreement that 
Juan Gaetano discovered the group as early as 1 jjj. 

There were many traditions among the natives of the 
appearance among them of strange people previous to this 
date. Among them, very likely, were members of ship- 
wrecked Spanish crews, driven out of their course, and 
possibly stranded on those shores. It is a matter of 
history that a Japanese junk with four men on board 
reached the island of Oahu in 1823. Other similar arrivals 
may have preceded this. This fact, of the drifting of 

small boats for long distances on the Pacific, abundantly 

11 



12 HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

attested in recent years even, is suggestive of the way in 
which the islands were originally peopled. 

ANCIENT CANOE JOURNEYS. Nothing is more 
pronounced in the traditions and meles, or historic songs, 
of the Hawaiians than the intrepid canoe journeys to and 
from Hawaii and other Pacific islands. Thus, these meles 
speak of lands from which Hawaii-loa, a famous fisher- 
man and navigator, sailed to the east and discovered 
Hawaii and Maui, the two largest islands of the Hawaiian 
group. These voyages were mainly between Hawaii and 
Kahiki, supposed to be Tahiti, a name which later came to 
be a general term for foreign lands. Alexander, in his 
" History of the Hawaiian People," says : " It is probable 
that those ancient navigators had large canoes, built up of 
planks sewed together, and decked over, in part at least, 
with capacity to hold live-stock and stores for a long 
voyage. They were bold and expert seamen, inured to 
hardship, and had a respectable knowledge of the positions 
of the principal stars, and of their rising and setting at 
different times c: -he year. The fact that they made those 
journeys is indisputable." 

ORIGIN OF HAWAIIANS. The motive for these 
voyages from Hawaii to the westward was undoubtedly 
linked with the fact that it was from thence that the first 
settlers of Hawaii came. Fornander, in his " Polynesian 
Races," abundantly demonstrates the racial affinities of the 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 13 

aboriginal inhabitants of the Pacific islands from New 
Zealand to Hawaii. All these people "speak dialects of 
the same language, have the same physical features, the 
same manners and customs, the same general system of 
tabu, and similar traditions and religious rites. The names 
of the principal gods, the stories told of the demigod 
Maui, of the origin of fire, about the deluge, and many 
others, are common to all these islands."* Men, like 
Fornander, who have made a special comparative study 
of the physical appearance and language of the Pacific 
islanders, and of the people of Madagascar, Philippine 
Islands, and the Malayan Archipelago, conclude that all 
these allied races originally came from southwestern Asia. 

AN ANCIENT RACE. Human bones have been 
found in the Hawaiian Islands underneath ancient coral 
beds and lava flows, and one authority has estimated that 
the group must have been inhabited as early as joo A. D. 
However that may be, it is known that the islands were 
densely populated when first discovered by white men. 
For a barbarous race it was highly organized into orders, 
with a system of checks, and with laws and religious 
ceremonies, long anterior to the advent of foreigners. The 
government was a feudal one, each island having its high 
chief, with subordinate chiefs in every district, who, in 
turn, had inferior chiefs in every ha mlet. These chiefs 

* Alexander. 



i 4 HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

were the nobility, and in stature and bearing and prowess 
were tar removed from the common people. 

THE COMMON PEOPLE. The latter were sub- 
divided into castes, — canoe-builders, and notably fisher- 
men, being accorded especial distinction among the 
makaainanas or common people, who were at best mere 
tenants subject to the slightest whims of their chiefs. 
These people cultivated the land, and in great companies 
and for set periods under command of the chiefs, built the 
great fish walls along the coasts, and the immense heiaus 
or temples, and the extensive paved roads, all of which 
can be seen, in a more or less preserved condition, in many 
parts of the group. When the taro of the common people 
was nearly ripe, the chief would confiscate the larger part 
and the best of the crop by causing a tabu stick to be 
placed in the loi or taro patch. Thereafter it would be 
certain death, even for the cultivator, to take a single taro 
for his own use. Certain kinds of taro, notably a pink- 
variety, were specially sacred to the use of the chiefs. 

THE PRIESTHOOD. Hardly inferior in rank to the 
chiefs, and certainly no more merciful toward the common 
people, were the haughty and powerful priests whom even 
high chiefs sometimes feared, and always cautiously 
regarded, lest they should come under their dread sorcery. 

The ancient religion was a species of idolatry, with 
oppressive restrictions, and with human sacrifices- Ha- 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 15 

waiians peopled the sea and the sky, and their dark 
valleys, and the volcanoes, with vindictive and malignant 
spirits, who in the form of man-eating sharks and disas- 
trous volcanic upheavals, and the more dreaded form of 
disease, sought out their victims with a hatred that could be 
placated only by the most assiduous and subservient resort 
to the arts of the kahuna or priest, whose incantations 
served quite as much to terrorize the poor native as all the 
imaginary demi-gods in the air about him. 

The idols were hideous. When priests wanted victims 
for sacrifice they went into ambush, and, deceiving some 
passer-by with piteous cries for help, killed him when he 
came to their relief. When a chief died, or a heiau was to 
be consecrated, or a canoe was to be built, victims must 
be sacrificed, and the common people in abject terror 
would flee to the woods for safety. To manifest 
mourning for a dead chief, the people resorted to all 
manner of bodily disfigurement, knocking out their front 
teeth, shaving one side of the face and head, and tattooing 
their tongues and bodies. " They threw off for the time 
all clothing and all restraints of decency, and appeared 
more like demons than human beings. Houses were 
often burned, property was plundered, revenge taken for 
old forgotten injuries, and a state of anarchy prevailed, 
according to the testimony of eye-witnesses. Even as 
late as 1823, at Keopuolani's death, many natives fled to 



16 HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

the mountains, while others carried their effects into the 
missionaries' inclosures and begged permission to remain 
there, hoping to find a sanctuary within their premises 
amidst the general devastation which they expected would 
follow her decease." 

SYSTEM OF TABU. The tabu system was a com- 
plicated de\ice for perpetuating the prestige and power of 
the priests. It has been well described as "a vast net- 
work of regulations and penalties." These penalties were 
summary and extreme. For instance, two young girls of 
high rank were seen eating a banana, which was forbidden 
fruit to women. Thereupon their immediate guardian was 
immediately put to death. Some penalties were cruel in 
the extreme, as when, for instance, a little child had her eye 
scooped out for daring to taste a banana. There was a 
tragically grotesque side to some of the special tabus on 
particular occasions. Thus imagine a pall of absolute 
noiselessness over a village for twenty-four hours, under 
a penalty of instant death to any who uttered a sound; 
even "the dogs had to be muzzled, and the fowls were 
shut up in calabashes" or immense poi-bowls. 

SOCIAL CUSTOMS. There were ceremonies in end- 
less variety affecting every incident in life, except that of 
marriage. Alexander says, " It is a significant fact that 
while every other act in life was accompanied with pray- 
ers and sacrifices to the gods, there were no religious 




J, A. CUM.VIINGS.— J. A. Cummings, a large sugar planter, is a perfect type of the 
Hawaiian half-white. He was Minister of Foreign Affairs during the latter part of the 
reign of King Kalakaua, being dismissed with other members of the cabinet when 
Liliuokalani became Queen. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 19 

ceremonies connected with marriage. Not even the favor 
of the aumakuas (spirits of departed ancestors) was in- 
voked. It was entered upon with less ceremony than 
fishing or planting." "A fisherman could not use a new 
net or fishing-rod without prayer and sacrifice to his 
patron god." But the relation most vitally affecting, the 
life of any race, was so lightly regarded as to be more than 
suggestive of the cause of the loss of national virility. 
Thus "the husband could dismiss his wife without any 
ceremony. Polygamy was allowed in all ranks, but prac- 
ticed mostly by the chiefs. The state of society will not 
bear description." " Infanticide was fearfully prevalent, 
and there were few of the older women at the date of the 
abolition of idolatry who had not been guilty of it. It was 
the opinion of those best informed that two-thirds of all 
the children born were destroyed in infancy by their 
parents. They were generally buried alive, in many cases 
in the very houses occupied by their unnatural parents. 
On all the islands the number of males was much greater 
than that of females, in consequence of the girls being 
more frequently destroyed than the boys. Among the 
common people old age was despised. The sick and 
those who had become helpless from age were sometimes 
abandoned to die or were put to death. Insane people 
were also sometimes stoned to death." 

FUTURE LIFE. While a certain element of vagueness 



2o HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

characterized their conception of a future life, the 
Hawaiians recognized a distinction in the lot of the dead. 
Thus the lower world, into which the spirits of men were 
supposed to leap at death, " was divided into distinct king- 
doms, the upper one ruled by Wakea, and the lower by 
Milu. The region of Wakea, the ancestor of the race, was 
a quiet and peaceful realm of comparative comfort, 
reserved for the select few. Wakea was possessed of 
higher tabus and greater power than Milu, and only ad- 
mitted those who had been scrupulous in observing the 
religious rites and tabus during life. Milu was said to 
have been an ancient chief of Hamakua, Hawaii, notorious 
for his wickedness during life, who afterwards became 
king of a realm of darkness and misery, below that of 
Wakea, to which the great majority of the dead were 
destined. Their food consisted of lizards and butterflies, 
but there were streams of water of which they could 
drink, and spreading kou trees beneath which they re- 
clined. Milu's province was also said to be a noisy and 
disorderly place, where lawless akuas kept up wild games 
all night." 

With a finer national spirit, like the poetic conceptions 
of the North American Indians of the happy hunting 
grounds, some of the traditions allied the more heroic 
spirit and feats of the race to the conditions of existence 
after death. Thus their noble chiefs were conducted bv 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 2 r 

one of the gods to a heaven in or beyond the clouds. 
Some said the souls of heroes went to " the hidden land 
of Kane, which seems to have been a sort of Fata 
Morgana or fairy island in the west. It was said that 
mariners sometimes saw in the distance a beautiful island 
abounding in cocoanut trees, but it was all unsubstantial 
and ghostly, and receded before them like the mirage of 
the desert." 

BONES OF THE CHIEFS. "The deified bones of 
the chiefs," writes Alexander, "were generally carefully 
concealed in the most secret and inaccessible caves. 
Before death they made their most trusty attendants 
swear to conceal their bones so that no one could ever find 
them. ' I do not wish/ said a dying chief, 'that my bones 
should be made into arrows to shoot mice with (a favorite 
pastime of the chiefs) or into fish-hooks.' " 

There is a legend that after the death of Pae, an ancient 
chief in the famous Waipio valley, his devoted servants, in 
accordance with his request, took his bones secretly to a 
small cave in the perpendicular face of the precipice, and 
just under the waters of the Hiilawe Falls, which leap 
from this point 1700 feet into the valley below. There 
they felt that the precious bones were safe, as only two of 
them knew of the place. One day, while looking at 
the rushing waters, a famous magician suddenly turned to 
the King at his side, saying, " I see two young men passing 



22 HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

and re-passing through the Hiilawe waters, and the rain- 
bow above shows they are aliis." The King ridiculed the 
idea, but some days after the same magician, standing 
with the King, said, ''There are the chiefs again in the 
Hiilawe waters." Then the King sent his most sure- 
footed mountaineers with ropes to examine the place, with 
the result that the cave was found, together with the 
skeleton of Pae, wrapped in his feather cloak, and the 
skeleton of one of his faithful attendants who had been 
killed, that his chief might have company to the other 
world. 

Out of the thigh bone of Pae a large hook for deep 
sea fishing was made, which is now in the Museum at 
Honolulu. " It was an extremely lucky hook," writes 
Mrs. Nakuina, an authority in Hawaiian folk lore, " and 
seemed to have a kind of power to attract fish. Battles 
have been fought, lost and gained for the possession of 
this hook." 

SORCERY. Hawaiians were the victims of a most 
cruel and depressing system of sorcery. It is doubt- 
ful whether all the evils connected with the tabu and 
ceremonial system combined were as pernicious and en- 
slaving as the thraldom placed on the common people by 
the sorcerers. They were feared and hated, and were 
sometimes stoned to death or beheaded by order of a 
chief. The anaana sorcerer was able to pray a peison to 




DOOMED TO DEATH. This picture illustrates a v,,v thrilling episode in Hawaiian 
history. When the great Kamehameha was gaining by conquest and stratezv the 
control of all the smaller tribes and nations, he induced a brillianl yroung prince of 
Oahan to betray his people into surrender, upon discovery of which the voune 

Prmce was sentenced to death, and the picture represents him giving his las, counsel 
and instructions t<> his sister before his execution, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 25 

deatn. " In order to effect his purpose, it was absolutely 
essential for him to secure something connected with the 
person of the intended victim, as the parings of the nails, 
a lock of the hair, etc., which was termed the maunu or 
bail. For this reason the chiefs always kept their most 
faithful servants around them, who carefully buried or 
burned every thing of the kind or sunk it out at sea." 
Secretly but subtly this anaana type of sorcery is still 
practiced among Hawaiians. So great is the fear of the 
Kahuna, who is supposed to possess this power, that more 
or less intelligent natives, while under the medical care of 
the best physicians of Honolulu, will surreptitiously call in 
the Kahuna and submit to his incantations to break the 
spell that they imagine themselves to be under. The 
medical fraternity, who come constantly into contact with 
this survival of heathenish superstition, agree that the 
Kahunas are largely responsible for the high death rate 
among Hawaiians. Speaking of the effect on the people, 
Alexander says, " The sorcerer sometimes used poison to 
accomplish his ends, but the power of imagination and of 
superstitious fear was often sufficient to make the victim 
give up all hope and to pine away till he died." 

DISASTROUS WARS. For three hundred years pre- 
vious to the coming of Capt. Cook, in the language of 
Judge Fornander, a careful student of that period, there 
11 was an era of strife, dynastic ambitions, internal and ex- 



26 HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

ternal wars on each island, with all their deteriorating con- 
::::r5 :»f anarchy, depopulation, soda! and intellectual 
degradation, loss of liberty, loss of knowledge, loss of 
The forces that had been fostered by a cruel and 
licentious and degrading barbarism were sapping the 
vitality of the race. The rapid decline in virility and 
number had set in, and even the beneficent forces of a 
Christian civilization, fifty years later, seemed almost 
r erless to stay the momentum. This period closes 
with a burst of heroism that was at the same time a 
dismal prophecy of the future of the race. The famous 
battle of the sand-hills near Wailuku, Maui, was like a 
Thermopylae to that proud and superior race who formed 
the real nobility of the land. When Kalaniopuu sent his 
picked regiment of noble chiefs, the famous Map 
wart, unflinching heroes every man of them, with spears 
set, across the sand-hills to meet the chiefs of Maui in 
open combat, he unintentionally struck a death-blov 
his race. These men were the physical and intellectual 
ers of a nation that needed every one of them in its 
struggle to survive. Their brawn and brain and vitality 
typified the enduring forces in an otherwise shattered and 
enfeebled race. As they march in perfc ;ipline over 

those fateful plains, the flower of the land, their enemies 
rise about them in ambush in overpowering numbers, and 
leave not a man alive to tell the tale of their heroic 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 27 

struggle. It was a tine example of heroism, but at what 
awful cost to the physical stamina and fioer of an already 
stricken race. 

COOK'S DISCOVERY. To Capt. Cook belongs the 
credit of the discovery of the islands in the sense that it 
was he who first made them known to the world. His 
tragic death drew the attention of the English-speaking race. 
Before his arrival at the islands in 1778, this group was 
the loneliest bit of land in all the great oceans. It was out 
of the course taken by navigators in the Pacific, and it was 
by the merest accident that in setting sail from the Society 
Islands, 2500 miles to the south of Hawaii, on his way to 
discover a northern passage from the Pacific to the Atlantic 
Ocean, sailing almost due north, on January 18, 1778, he 
discovered the island of Oahu. So far as proximity to 
any other land in the North Pacific is concerned, Hawaii 
will always maintain its unique loneliness, for it is the 
only land between America and Asia north of latitude 20 
and south of the Aleutian Islands, and is from 1200 to 
1800 miles from the nearest groups to the south, and more 
than 2200 miles from the Samoan Islands, the nearest 
group of importance. 

PROXIMITY TO AMERICA. From San Francisco, as 
a centre, let a thread representing 2080 miles be swung on 
a map as in drawing a circle, and it will strike Honolulu, 
the capital of the Hawaiian Islands, on the south-west ; 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

the Alaska peninsula on the north-west; the Mississ 
Kiver on the east; the city of Houston, Texas, on 
the south-east; and the isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico, 
on the south. These fads reveal the proximity of 
Hawaii to the American coast, showing, as they do, that 
Chicago and the Nicaragua Canal that is to be, are more 
distant from San Francisco than Hawaii is. One can sail 
ijoo miles due west from Honolulu, three times the 
distance from Buffalo, X. Y., to Chicago, and the 
following a great circle sail due north and arrive at Uni 
States territory in Alaska. And in all that distance the: 
no other land, but rather only a vast ■: cean already teeming 
with a commerce that is only a prophecy ; : v hat is to 
This comparative proximity to our own coast, in the cir- 
cumstances, lends additional weight to the words of that 
far-seeing statesman, Wm. H. Seward, who in the Uni 
States Senate in i8p said, "The Pacific Ocean, its shores, 
its islands, and the vast region beyond will become the 
chief theater of events in the world's great hereafter." In 
the furtherance and protection of commerce, contiguous 
territory is iess advantageous than land that is reasonably 

.imate while yet out on the ocean's highways. That 
Hawaii would constitute a most important American out- 
port in the growing commerce of the pad i not be 
doubted on geographical considerations alone. 

SIZE OF THE GROUP. There are eight inhabited 




ALONG THE WMLUKU RIVER.— !t is difficult to imagine any scenery 
more lovely than that which bonders the Wailuku River on the island of 
Hawaii. Starting on the slopes of Mauna Kea, sometimes dashing in foam- 
ing cataracts over cliffs more than a hundred feet in height. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 31 

islands, viz., Hawaii, Maui, Kahoolawe, Lanai, Molokai, 
Oahu, Kauai, and Niihau, comprising an area of 6,700 
square miles, or about 500 square miles greater than the 
combined areas of the States of Rhode Island and Con- 
necticut. They extend from northwest to southeast over 
a distance of about three hundred and eighty miles, or 
about the distance from Rochester to New York City. 
The largest island is Hawaii, which has given its name to 
the group. The various islands are separated by channels 
varying in width from six to sixty miles. Now there has 
grown up an extensive system of inter-island steamers 
numbering over twenty in 1891, fitted up with dynamos 
for electric lighting, and several of them having superior 
accommodations for the growing passenger traffic. For- 
merly the only means of communication was by canoes, an 
actual incident having occurred to illustrate this less than 
two years ago ; when a member, elected to fill a vacancy in 
the legislature, not being content to wait for the steamer in 
his eagerness to take his seat, hired men to row him in a 
canoe from Hilo, Hawaii, to Honolulu, a distance of over 
200 miles! 

CAPT. COOK'S DEATH. The verdict of the later 
historians, being possessed of all the facts in the case, 
seems to be that Cook courted his death by his abuse of 
the hospitality of the natives. They brought to him eveiy 
day "a liberal supply of hogs and vegetables, while several 



32 HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

canoe-loads of provisions were daily sent to the ships, for 
which no return was ever made/' Instead, "the violations 
of tabu and the abandoned conduct of their guests were 
such as to disgust even heathens, while the lavish con- 
tributions levied upon the people for their support began 
to be felt as a heavy burden." The breach widened 
when Cook, needing fuel, allowed his men to take the 
fence around one of the heiaus, which was carried aboard 
together with twelve idols from the temple, despite the 
protestations of the priests. The natives retaliated by 
stealing a boat, and frequent collisions occurred, not only 
embittering the natives, but resulting, finally, in the un- 
provoked killing of a chief, which so infuriated some of the 
chiefs and their followers that an attack was immediately 
made on Cook and some of his men, who were on shore, 
causing Cook's death and that of four of his men, and the 
loss of seventeen lives by the natives, five of whom were 
chiefs. 

WORSHIPPED AS A GOD. Whatever may be said 
of Cook's record elsewhere, it is indisputable that he 
knowingly accepted oblations and worship from the sim- 
ple natives of Kalakekua Bay, who deemed him to be 
an incarnation of their god Lono. Writes Jarves : " He 
moved among them an earthly deity, observed, feared, 
and worshipped. In mere courtesy even he seems to 
have been outdone by the untutored savage, for when, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 33 

with great formality, the king, on one occasion, placed 
his own magnificent feather cloak upon Cook's shoulders, 
and a feather helmet on his head, and laid five or six 
other beautiful cloaks at his feet, Cook, in response to 
this royal expression of regard and good-will, took the 
king's party aboard his vessel, and presented the noble 
chief with a linen shirt and a cutlass! To be sure, 
Cook left seeds of melons, and pumpkins, and onions 
at Niihau, but his men "left behind them diseases un- 
known before, which spread through the group, causing 
misery and death to the people." 

VANCOUVER'S VISITS. Of quite another stamp 
was the benevolent and judicious Vancouver, who visited 
the islands twelve years after the death of Cook. He 
refused to sell arms and ammunition to the natives, being 
"struck with the evidence of the decrease in population, 
and with the insatiable desire of the natives to obtain 
fire-arms." He used his good offices in reconciling Kame- 
hameha to his favorite queen, and sought to allay the 
strife between Kamehameha and Kahekili, king of Maui. 
He landed sheep and cattle and had a tabu laid on them 
for ten years, so as to promote their increase. He intro- 
duced orange trees and grape vines and other useful 
plants and seeds, and gave Kamehameha, so soon to be 
the head of the nation, " much valuable advice in regard 
to his intercourse with foreigners, the management of his 



54 HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

kingdom, the discipline of his troops, etc He also told 
him of the one true God, Creator and Governor of all the 
world, that their tabu system was wrong, and that he 
would ask the king of England to send him a teacher of 
the true religion." 

BRITISH PROTECTORATE. As of current interest, 
I quote from Alexander's History of the Hawaiian F_ - 
pie: "On the 21st of February, 1794, a grand council of 
the chiefs was held on board of the 'Discovery,' for the 
purpose of placing Hawaii under the protection of Great 
Britain. They reserved, however, the right to reg;. 
all their own internal affairs. On the 25th Lieut. Puget 
hoisted the British flag on shore, and took possession of 
Hawaii in the name of his Britannic Majesty. A salute • 
then fired, and the natives shouted, 'Kanaka no Beritano , 
(' We are men of Britain ')." This cession was never rati- 
fied by the Home Government, but the transaction w; 
noteworthy one, as indicating both a love for independ- 
ence, and a desire for the support of a strong nation. 

KAMEHAMEHA THE GREAT. I: is doubtful, all 
things considered, whether any other ever 

produced a man of such prowess in war, and of such 
statesmanship and rare judgment in the art of govern- 
ment in time of peace. Kamehameha was the last of 
those ancient feudal chiefs who, by reason of physical 
intellectual superiority, were born to lead their people. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 35 

Before his conquest of the group was complete, there 
were left but a mere handful of those shrewd and power- 
ful chiefs whose deeds are the boast of Hawaiians ; and 
before his death even these had passed away, and he was 
left alone, a fact in keeping with the native signification of 
his name, viz., "The lone or solitary one." He was born 
and bred amid the shouts of war, and is supposed to 
have been present at the death of Capt. Cook, and also to 
have been among the reserves when that fatal yet famous 
charge of the Alapa was made over the sand-hills of 
Wailuku. 

HIS ENTERPRISE. Nothing commends this gre£ 
man more than his spirit of enterprise in the arts "of peace. 
Thus, before he actively entered on his career of conquest, 
he spent several years "in quietly cultivating and improv- 
ing his lands, building canoes, and fishing. Several of his 
public works are still to be seen, such as a tunnel by 
which a water-course is carried through a ridge of rock in 
Niulii, besides a canoe landing in Halaula, a fishpond, etc. ,y 
After his conquest of the other islands, " he exerted him- 
self to promote agriculture, to encourage industry, and thus 
to repair the ravages of his wars." Later in his reign 
" there was a famine in Hawaii, caused by the neglect of 
agriculture while the people had been forced to spend 
their time in cutting sandal-wood for the chiefs. Kame- 
hameha set his retinue to work in planting the ground, 



J 



6 HISTORICAL SKETCH. 



and also set an example of industry himself. The piece 
of ground which he tilled is still pointed out. As an 
illustration of his foresight, it is said that he forbade the 
cutting of young sandal-wood, and instructed his bird- 
catchers not to strangle the birds from which they plucked 
the choice yellow feathers for royal cloaks, but to set them 
free, that other feathers might grow in their place." 

HIS PERSONAL PROWESS. What Kamehameha 
was in actual conflict we never shall know, except that he 
was greatly feared in battle, and wherever he moved 
rallied men to renewed attack. "Vancouver relates that 
in a sham fight he saw six spears cast at once at Kame- 
hameha I., of which he caught three, parried two, and 
avoided the sixth by a quick movement of his body." 
Doubtless this skill in warfare accounts for his survival 
when so many who fought at his side fell victims to the 
spears of the enemy. 

HIS CONQUEST OF THE GROUP. Having sub- 
dued his rivals on his own island of Hawaii, with a great 
armada of war-canoes he easily subdued Maui and Molo- 
kai, and thence proceeded to the subjugation of Oahu. 
A tradition reports his army as numbering 16,000 men. 
During the voyage to Oahu, Kaiana, a noted chief, through 
affront at not being invited to a council of war, separated 
himself from Kamehameha's forces, landed on the opposite 
side of the island, and joined the forces of Kalanikupule, 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. Z 7 

the king of Oahu. Kaiana was made the leader of the 
Oahu forces in the battle the next day, but when he was 
killed by a cannon-ball, his troops, though making a brave 
resistance, retreated up the Nuuanu Valley. They were 
hotly pursued, the howitzers that Kamehameha had se- 
cured from foreign vessels making havoc among the re- 
treating forces. Some climbed up the ridges on either side 
and escaped, while others were driven headlong over the 
precipice to the rocks, 1200 feet below. Kamehameha was 
not merciful in the day of battle. He was in all respects 
a genuine heathen to the day of his death. He gained 
control of his own island by a treacherous slaughter of a 
rival chief who had been invited by Kamehameha to a 
friendly conference. In the sanguinary battle in Iao val- 
ley, five years before the conquest of Oahu, Kamehameha 
showed no quarter, and the Maui warriors, struck with ter- 
ror at the deadly fusillade of the two field-pieces managed 
by white men in Kamehameha's army, were driven over 
precipices and chased to the high peaks and crags of the 
mountain, where they were starved into surrender. It 
was said that the stream in the valley was choked with 
corpses of the slain, whence the battle was called, " Ke- 
paniwai " (the damming of the waters). 

CENTRALIZING POLICY. In subduing the kings of 
the various islands, Kamehameha confiscated all the lands, 
dividing them among his friends as suited his whim. The 



3 S HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

king of Kauai, who sought peace with Kamehameha by 
the cession of his island, was permitted to retain his lands, 
holding them in fief during his lifetime on condition that 
Kamehameha's son should inherit them. 

DISTILLING RUM. "The art of distilling rum was 
introduced by some Botany Bay convicts before the year 
1800." The mascerated roots of the Ki plant were al- 
lowed to ferment in water, and when distilled, the liquor 
called Okolehao, was almost pure alcohol. The chiefs all 
had their stills, very primitive, to be sure, and drunkenness 
became prevalent. Kamehameha at first drank to excess, 
but later abandoned it altogether. " Near the end of his 
life he summoned all the leading men of Hawaii to a 
great assembly at Kailua, at which he ordered all the stills 
to be destroyed, and forbade the manufacture of any kind 
of liquor." 

HIS DEATH. When the priests wanted human sac- 
rifices in his last illness, so that the gods would prolong 
his life, he refused his consent. He died at the age of 
eighty-two years, in 18 19. After his death, "according to 
custom, all law was suspended, and all restraints taken 
away. The conduct of the people forbids description/ ' 

IDOLATRY ABOLISHED. The turmoil and restless- 
ness induced by almost continuous warfare during a 
period of three hundred years, had a demoralizing effect 
on the faith of the Hawaiians in their ancient institutions 




MAUSOLEUM OF LUNALILO. Lunalilo was the last, who claimed descent from 
the ECamehamehas, to rule in Hawaii. He was called the "Well Beloved" bj his peo- 
ple. The Lunalilo Mausoleum stands near the entrance of the Kawaihao Church. 

The grounds are always tilled with exquisite Mowers, Lovingly cared for by the natives. 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 41 

of idolatry and the tabu system. The turpitude of white 
men in their disregard of sacred things, and their appar- 
ent exemption from harm and penalty of any kind, shook 
the faith of natives in the existence and power of their 
gods. The unfaltering allegiance of Kamehameha to the 
gods of his fathers, united to his controlling will in. all 
national affairs, was probably all that kept the system 
from crumbling sooner. Be that as it may, no sooner 
was his son Lilioliho well seated on the throne, than he 
himself in a drunken carousal violated the tabu, and the 
system already tottering, crumbled to pieces with its own 
weight. Excesses of all kinds followed as a natural result. 
The stern repressions and complicated ceremonies being 
abolished, with nothing but the personal will of a dissi- 
pated King as a substitute, the people carried their liberty 
into license, and another element was set at work to 
hasten the decrease of the race. 

COMING OF THE MISSIONARIES. The effect of 
the breaking down of the tabu system and the abandon- 
ment of the idols was to leave the people without any 
religion. Had not a new force come to the nation from 
outside at this juncture it is altogether probable that there 
would have been a return to idolatry, but with larger lati- 
tude to the individual in the very directions most harmful 
to the longevity of the race. The missionaries from 
America arrived at this critical period and brought the 



4 2 HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

g : spel : f glad tidings for the salvation of the people. The 
old religion ha\ing come under the condemnation of the 

mi, and been cast aside as worse than useless, the 
pro\idence of God brings to the shores of the emancip. 
people, in the persons of the American missionaries, a 
religion of hope and life and spiritual power to take its 

r. The same month of the year, C :tober, 1819, that 
idolatry was abolished, the first missionaries, Messrs. 
Bingham and Thurston, set sail from Boston for the v 
age around Cape Horn. " Probably none of you will 
live to witness the downfall of idolatry," was one of the 
last words said to them pre\ious to their embarking for 
the long journey. Imagine the startling effect on these 
men, five months later, as they anchored off Kailua Bay, 
when Hopu, their Hawaiian companion, who had been 
carried away on a whaler, and been educated in New- 
England, ar now to act as their interpreter, brought 
the tidings from shore, " Hawaii's idols are no more." 

"The first pupils of the missionaries," writes Ale 
der, "were the chiefs and their favorite attendants, and 
the wives and children (half castes) of foreigners. At 
first their teaching was 'y in English, but by degrees 

they devoted their time and energies more and more to 
the task of mastering the Hawaiian language, and of 

::ing it to writing, until they made it their chief me- 
dium of instruction." 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 43 

DESTRUCTION OF IDOLS. In 1822, Kaahumanu, 
Kamehameha's favorite queen, conducted a crusade against 
the old religion, from what motive, it would be difficult to 
say, and as a result " Kamehameha's poison-god, Kalai- 
pahoa was burned at Hilo, and at Kailua, one hun- 
dred and two idols, collected from various hiding places, 
were consumed in one bonfire. Feasting, dancing, and 
revelry went on together with the burning of idols." It 
was not until three years after this that Kaahumanu was 
converted to the Christian religion. 

KAPIOLANI'S HEROISM. " Kapiolani, ,, writes Alex- 
ander, "was one of the noblest characters of her time. 
Though at one time intemperate and dissolute, Kapiolani 
became an example to her countrywomen of virtue and 
refinement, and excelled them all in the readiness with 
which she adopted civilized habits and sentiments. In 
December, 1824, she determined to break the spell of the 
belief in Pele, the dread goddess of the volcano. In spite 
of the strenuous opposition of her friends, and even of 
her husband, she made a journey of about one hundred 
and fifty miles, mostly on foot, from Kealakekua to Hilo, 
visiting the great crater of Kilauea on her way, in order to 
defy the wrath of Pele, and to prove that no such being- 
existed. On approaching the volcano, she met the priest- 
ess of Pele, who warned her not to go near the crater, 
and predicted her death if she violated the tabus of the 



44 HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

Jess. 'Who are you?' demanded Kapiolani. 'One in 
whom the goddess dwells,' she replied. Then Kapiolani 
quoted passages from the Scriptures, setting forth the char- 
acter and power of the true God, until the priestess 
silenced, and confessed that the akua or deity had left her. 
Kapiolani then went forward to the crater, where, in full view 
of the grand and terrific action of the inner crater, she 
the berries consecrated to Pele, and threw stones into the 
burning lake, saying: 'Jehovah is my God. He kindleth 
these fires. I fear not Pele. If I perish by her anger, 
tnen you may fear Pele ; but if I trust in Jehovah, and he 

^rves me when breaking her tabus, then you must 
fear and serve him alone.' They then united in singing 
a hymn of praise to the true God, and knelt in adoration 
to the Creator and Governor of the universe." This has 

i well called "one of the greatest acts of moral cour- 
_ ever performed." 

MISSIONARY SUCCESS. Eight years after their land- 
ing, the missionaries numbered thirty-two, ha\ing 440 
native assistants, 12,000 church attendants, and 26,000 
pupils in the various schools. Some of the leading chiefs 
were the most efficient co-workers with the missionaries 
in arousing a great national interest in Christian truth. 

The wanton and disgraceful conduct of officers and 
men of English and American vessels was the darkest 
incident in this transition period of abandonment of 



HISTORICAL SKETCH. 47 

heathenism and acceptance of the Christian religion. 
Maddened by the restraints put upon them by the au- 
thorities, thus preventing the accomplishment of their 
lusts, these infamous men resorted to threats and vio- 
lence, and on several occasions the lives of missionaries 
were saved only by the opportune and forcible inter- 
vention of the natives. 

The great revival of 1838-39 is memorable in the 
annals of missionary effort, writes Dr. Bartlett of that 
remarkable awakening: "There were congregations of 
four, five and six thousand persons. The missionaries 
preached from seven to twenty times a week, and a 
sense of guilt in the hearers often broke forth in groans 
and loud cries. Probably many indiscretions were com- 
mitted, and there were many spurious conversions. But, 
after all allowances, time showed that a wonderful work 
was wrought. During the six years from 1838 to 1843 
inclusive, twenty-seven thousand persons were admitted 
to the churches. The next twenty years added more 
than 20,000 other members to the churches, making the 
whole number received up to 1863 some £0,000 souls. 
Many of these had then been excommunicated, in some 
instances, it was thought, too hastily; many thousands 
had gone home to heaven; and in 1863, some 20,000 
still survived in connection with the churches. At length 
came the time when the islands were to be recognized 



48 HISTORICAL SKETCH. 

as nominally a Christian nation, and the responsibility 
of their Christian institutions was to be rolled off upon 
themselves." 

THE HOPE OF HAWAII. When the missions were 
withdrawn, it was well that there was growing up in the 
land a class of men wise enough and courageous enough 
to undertake for Hawaii in its new development, a work 
no less noble than that of the missionary fathers, — a work 
calling for much of the same self-sacrificing devotion, and 
the same exposure to ridicule and malignant hatred, but 
characterized by a genuine interest in the welfare of the 
native people, and by a purpose to secure for them in 
common with all others the blessings of a progressive 
republican government. 

The best and most honorable men among the native 
Hawaiians are allied in spirit and purpose, publicly an- 
nounced, with the present leaders of Hawaiian affairs. In 
the New Hawaii the fruitage of the past is not to be lost. 
The forces of civilization and of Christianity are the domi- 
nant forces in this period of tense political strain. Chris- 
tianity saved the Hawaiian race from complete collapse 
and disappearance from the earth, and the principles that 
underlie Christian civilization that are now battling against 
a drift back to barbarism and the supremacy of a rene- 
gade white element, are the only ground of hope for the 
Hawaiian race in the future. 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

THE KANAKA. The aborigine, or Kanaka, or, as he 
is more properly called, the native Hawaiian, is the most 
interesting personage in Hawaii. The peculiar garb, and 
the dislocated jargon of the Chinese and Japanese are met 
with on every hand, but these can be seen and heard 
elsewhere. The same can be said of the Portuguese 
immigrants, in some respects the most thrifty and promis- 
ing element in the peopling of New Hawaii. 

But the Kanaka, the original occupant of the country, 
the genuine son of the soil, is far and away the most 
interesting personage in that beautiful land of sunshine. 
No enterprise seems to be able to get along without him, 
and you meet his familiar face at every turn. It is on the 
whole, an attractive face, and, except on the most unto- 
ward occasions, it lights up with rare kindliness, and wins 
you with its smile. It is this benignant approachableness 
that puts the Kanaka in touch with the stranger at first 
sight. 

To be sure, civilization has taught him to put a com- 
mercial value on this natural aptitude for good nature, and 
he puts it to good use in his laudable efforts to help you 
ashore, for a consideration, when the steamer comes up to 

49 



50 THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

the wharf; or in his cheerful and confident expe 
that you will buy his wares when you pass his stand. As 
a consequence, Hawaiians uniformly make courteous and 
obliging clerks, though their cleverness at the counter 
rarely been followed by promotion to the counting-room. 
The native Hawaiian fails as a business man. He gets 
along fairly well with a fruit stand, or a fish stall, or a 
diminutive curio shop, but there have been few insta. 
where he has successfully conducted any kind of busi- 
ness, requiring banking and a credit system. It is not to 
be expected of him. The mercantile spirit has been the 
product of centuries of progress in dickering, and this 
experience has not fallen to the lot of the unsophistic. 
Hawaiian. 

OCCUPATION OF KANAKAS. The- are, how. 
few occupations in which Hawaiians are not found. They 
are painters, carper lacksmiths, machinists, er._ 

teamsters, sailors, clerks, book-keepers, editors, market- 
men, dairy-men, farmers, cattle-raisers, sugar plant 
fishermen, school teachers, clergymen, and government 
officials. They are lawyers and judges; and th. g 
majority of compositors and pressmen in the half-a-dozen 
printing offices of Honolulu are Hawaiians. The he 
work in the foundries, and in lading and unlading 
is largely done by Hawaiians. That most essential service 
in inter-island traffic, viz., the manning of the boats to 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 53 

convey passengers and freight to and from the steamers 
and the various landings is altogether done by Hawaiians. 
This is a most hazardous employment, requiring strength, 
skill, courage and hardihood. Sometimes these men will 
battle for hours, in wind and rain and an angry sea, to 
effect a landing at a dangerous point. At certain seasons 
of the year there is hardly a return trip of the inter-island 
steamers to Honolulu that does not bring one or more of 
these freighters or whale-boats more or less badly " stove 
up." 

All the deep-sea fishing is carried on by Hawaiians. 
They go in their apparently frail canoes out of sight of 
Honolulu, but they rarely fail to return. This is quite 
remarkable, for there are strong currents passing the islands 
that would easily bear them away beyond all hope of 
rescue. These men swim like fish, and the capsizing of 
a canoe is an indifferent matter to them. This accounts 
for the comparatively small loss of life on the island coasts, 
and how it is that boats are "stove up" but not lost. The 
men jump into the water, right the boat and row it to the 
steamer, even in a badly leaking condition. It requires 
men of nerve and agility to bear the brunt of such toil, 
and the Hawaiians are nowhere put to a severer test with 
such credit to themselves. 

The census of 1890 shows that there are 996 mechan- 
ics in a total Hawaiian male population over 1^ years oi 



54 THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

age of 1 1, 1 35, or about one in every eleven. This certain^ 
is a good showing. It shows their capacity, under favor- 
able conditions, to take their share of the work that must 
be done. It shows, not what is characteristic of the race, 
but the part the race might play in the material develop- 
ment of the land were all Hawaiians living under similar 
conditions. The mechanic class are to be found mainly at 
Honolulu and at the plantation centers, where they must 
compete with others and adjust themselves to the con- 
ditions in which they find themselves or go to the wall. 

EASE IN GAINING A LIVELIHOOD. The sea has 
done more for the native, in developing skill and ingenuity, 
than the land. The comparative ease with which 
Hawaiians on their own land can secure their ordinary 
food supply has undoubtedly interfered with their social 
and industrial advancement. Poi has proved the greatest 
obstacle to the advancement of Hawaiians. The ease with 
which taro, the vegetable from which poi is made, can be 
grown, relieves the native from any genuine struggle for 
life, and unfits him for sustained competition with men 
from other lands, who know what hardship is, and who 
have learned how to get their own food in the face of 
strenuous competition in an overcrowded population. 

PRINCIPAL FOOD STAPLE. The taro, or Colo- 
casia antiquonim, a water plant, is the chief food staple 
imong the natives. It is generally grown in bis or taro 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 55 

patches, being land surrounded by turf sides into which 
water can be run from irrigating ditches. The taro is 
planted in hills, and grows in the water, care being exer- 
cised as to the time of running the water on and the 
depth at which it is kept. In the moist climate of Hilo 
taro is successfully grown on the uplands. A taro crop 
requires about twelve or fourteen months to mature, but 
being planted at odd times throughout the year, a native 
can always have food at hand in abundance. Thus an 
acre of land is more than sufficient to grow the food 
supply for quite a family. 

VALUE AND PRODUCTIVENESS OF TARO. The 
value of taro as a food is only equaled by its productive- 
ness. Thus it has been carefully estimated, by men en- 
gaged in the business of cultivating taro on a large scale, 
that an acre of land will yield on an average 28,000 pounds 
of cooked and pounded taro per annum. At the liberal 
allowance of four pounds per day per man, or three- 
fourths of a ton per annum, that yield would sustain 
eighteen men for the twelve months. This simply cor- 
roborates in figures the general statement that a small 
piece of land will abundantly supply the wants of quite a 
family, accustomed to taro as their main food supply. 

NATIVE INDOLENCE This fact makes against the 
native, inasmuch as it largely takes away the motive for 
the acquisition of more land, and leads him to be content 



5 6 THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

with what he has. Moreover, his little plot of ground 
furnishes him with the major part of his food at a mini- 
mum expenditure of toil. At most it only requires an 
occasional hour or so to keep his taro patch free from 
weeds and in a thrifty condition. Aside from an occasion- 
al day of fishing, the ease with which he can secure the 
necessities of life naturally leaves him with much time on 
his hands. This he spends leisurely as suits his whim. 
Sometimes he jogs off to town on his $15 pony to get the 
nuhou or news, or to loaf away the day at the boat- 
landing, or on the post-office steps. Sometimes, and more 
frequently, he passes away the balmy hours in innocuous 
desuetude, lying prone on the grass for hours in some 
convenient shade, indifferent to all but creature comfort. 
The happy thought that it is meal-time alone arouses him 
from the delicious monotony of just comfortably breathing 
and letting everything take care of itself. To be sure he 
varies his existence by an occasional incursion into the 
woods, returning bedecked with lets or wreaths of some 
fragrant vine or flowers, and with his patient pony loaded 
down with bunches of bananas and a bag of luscious 
oranges found growing wild within a convenient distance 
from his home. 

LUXURIOUS KANAKA! One day to him is as 
another. The struggle for life does not fret his soul, 
nor fill his thought with ''the winter of its discontent." 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 57 

lb-day's food can be had for the picking, and to-morrow's 
as well, and why should he not bask in the sunshine of 
an almost perfect climate, and smile on nature as she 
smiles on him ? He obeys literally the injunction, " Take 
no thought for the morrow I " To-day's comfort fills his 
horizon, and there is only one date in his almanac. He 
carries about with him a convenient history of the past 
that never ruffles his equanimity, and he accepts no re- 
sponsibility for the future. He does not need to get in his 
vegetables for winter or to calculate the cost of an ulster. 

PREPARATION OF POI. However, freely as he may 
regale himself on oranges, bananas, and cocoanuts just as 
they come to his hand, he can not eat his taro raw. He 
must cook it and scrape it and pound it, and, after allow- 
ing it to ferment slightly, he must mix it with water to the 
proper consistency. Taro thus treated is called poi. It is 
the national dish, and indeed is a most wholesome article 
of food. It is much more palatable than flour paste, to 
which it is so often likened, and foreigners learn to like it 
in one form or another. It is excellent in case of sick- 
ness, being easily digested and withal very nourishing. 

At Wailuku it is now manufactured into a flour that is 
used for making puddings, cakes, muffins and a variety of 
appetizing dishes. An effort is being made to introduce it 
into this country as a food for invalids. Without doubt, 
poi in its various forms is an ideal food. Much as it has 



58 THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

operated to retard the development of the Hawaiian race 
on account of the ease with which it can be obtained from 
a small plot of land, the Hawaiian, in turn, has much to 
be grateful for, that his staple article of food never pro- 
duces indigestion or induces dyspepsia and kindred afflic- 
tions. We may pity the man in whose sky is no light of 
progress, who is content with what is, and never seeks 
for something better, but such a man may much more and 
fittingly pity the victim of all the latest refinements in 
bread -making. 

THE HAWAIIAN NOT A FARMER. While the 
Kanaka's taro is growing, so also are his pigs and chickens. 
In one way or another they manage to get fat without any 
forcing process or much expenditure of time or energy on 
the part of the proprietor. In fact, the Hawaiian is not 
a farmer. He puts himself down as such when the 
census man comes around, and he certainly does know 
how to grow a crop of taro. But even in this respect, it is 
a question whether the Chinaman does not beat him, as 
he easily does beat him in all other farming. Thus the 
Chinaman is a fine market gardener. The Kanaka, on the 
other hand, knows next to nothing about gardening. The 
Kanaka does not successfully compete with the Chinese 
and Portuguese in growing bananas. The latter exported 
bananas in the year 1890 to the value of $176,3 51. There 
is a lack of persistence and of forethought in the Hawaiian 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 59 

character, induced very likely by his easy conditions, that 
militate against him when competing with the farmers of 
other lands. This is to be regretted, and it is to be hoped 
that the competition he now begins to rub up against may 
arouse in him a new spirit. 

MASTER OF WIND AND WAVE. The moment 
he decides he must "go a-flshing, ,, the Kanaka becomes 
a new being. Alertness and judgment and enthusiasm 
mark his every movement. He makes his preparations 
with great patience and minuteness. He overlooks noth- 
ing that will contribute to his success. His canoe is put 
in trim, his lines are all inspected, and his whole house- 
hold is enlisted in the capture of crabs on the rocks and in 
their hiding holes. He seems guided by instinct as well 
as by skill in thus securing his bait. 

It is a fascinating sight to watch the Kanaka launch his 
canoe, and guide it with his paddle as he rides supreme 
on the threatening swell that breaks with revengeful roar 
behind him just as he slips gracefully from its crest. This 
is his element. He laughs at the raging beach-combers 
as he deftly turns between them, and races his canoe 
through a strip of unbroken water out of reach of dan- 
ger and into deep water. It takes a moment only, and 
you are spell-bound at his prowess. No more to you is 
he the indolent native who lay so comfortably on the 
velvety manienie grass yonder by the grass-house. Now 



60 THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

he is a hero, with a manual skill little less than marvelous 
in the face of those madly-rushing breakers. 

THE SEA HIS SCHOOLMASTER. This contest with 
the sea, necessitated by the craving for what the sea 
could supply, has, from early days, been the real stim- 
ulus in the natural development of Hawaiian character. 
It has called out skill and courage and sagacity and 
ingenuity, and the ability to endure hardship and not suc- 
cumb. It has promoted a knowledge of navigation, and 
led to a minute and accurate observation of winds and 
currents and channels, and lent scope and fervor to the 
imagination, and set aflame the poetic spirit of the race. 
The old meles or songs are replete with references to 
the sea, as are also some of the most cherished tradi- 
tions. The sea is the Hawaiian's classic. Out of it have 
come the seven wonders of his legendary world, and off 
on it have gone, nevermore to return, the adventuresome 
spirits of his race, aglow with the ardor of discovery and 
conquest. 

RARE INGENUITY. A fine collection of ancient Ha- 
waiian fishing tackle and appliances is to be seen in the 
celebrated Bishop Museum at Honolulu. The array would 
have warmed the soul of good old Isaac Walton could 
he have had access to it. It certainly entitles the Ha- 
waiian to high rank among the world's fishermen. Be- 
fore the advent of the white man with his iron and 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 6 



j 



thread, the native, put to his own resources, had found 
material for his lines and hooks and spears and nets. 
For his lines and nets, he used the fiber of the olona, 
a plant growing in the valleys; and for hooks, he used 
bone and mother-of-pearl and tortoise shell. The latter 
were cut out with his stone implements, and made, of 
many styles as to size and shape, so as to suit the 
whim of the fisher, and to meet the needs of his trade. 
The spears were made of shark's teeth, and were used 
by divers under water. The early Hawaiians were skill- 
ful also in the use of large nets, capturing great numbers 
of fish by their skillful maneuvers. 

SUPERSTITIOUS BUT BRAVE. Superstition played 
no small part in the fishing of the early days. Human 
bones were preferred for fish hooks, especially those of 
high chiefs, to whom prayers were offered to bless the 
fisher in attracting fish to his hook. Oblations were 
offered to their fish gods for security and success in this 
hazardous calling. It is not probable that superstition 
plays any prominent part in the fishing of to-day, but 
the aptitude, and acquaintance with the sea, and with the 
habits and haunts of fish, that have descended from one 
generation to another, have made the Kanaka a skillful and 
intrepid man on the deep seas, where he is acknowledged 
to be facile princeps. 

KANAKAS AS COW-BOYS. In early days there 



6 4 THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

were no horses. They were introduced in 1803, by Capt. 
Cleveland on a voyage from California to China. They 
have since so increased in numbers that they run wild in 
droves on the slopes of Mauna Kea, and the native is an 
exceedingly poor man who does not own some kind of a 
horse. He is more likely to have two or three than to be 
without entirely. Naturally this has led him into an em- 
ployment in which he revels, viz., that of a cow-boy on 
the numerous cattle ranches on the various islands. In 
this work he is well nigh indispensable, manifesting great 
dexterity and endurance in the saddle. He is exceedingly 
vain of his accomplishments and calling, however, and his 
broad sombrero, and gigantic spurs that can be heard, as 
he rides, for an eighth of a mile, and his coiled lasso, the 
end of which he swings from one side to another of his 
horse's flanks, and his air of bravado, — these are the de- 
light of the boys of Honolulu, who like to imitate his 
unique costume, and transform themselves into beings of 
the same order. Elsewhere boys always reach a point 
where they want to go to sea. In Hawaii few of them 
grow to manhood without sooner or later catching the 
cow-boy's contagious spirit, and learning to lass a bipi 
on the run. 

HAWAIIAN HORSE WOMEN. The Hawaiian women 
are famous riders. They uniformly ride astride, and on 
gala days they dash through the streets in companies 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 65 

of eight or ten, with wreaths about their necks and hats, 
and with their red and yellow pa-us streaming behind. 
These pa-us are breadths of brilliantly-colored cloth, made 
into long streamers, and securely fastened at the pommel 
so as to trail freely on either side, as the riders gallop 
along. The picturesque and novel effect of these bright 
colors, together with the vivacity and rollicking good 
humor of the riders, and their easy gracefulness in the 
saddle, add not a little to the uniqueness of an Hawaiian 
holiday. There is in these women of the tropics a physi- 
cal self-possession, whether on land or on the sea, in 
the saddle or in the surf, in a common print holoku, or 
Mother Hubbard gown, or in costly silks, that is truly 
remarkable. 

HAWAIIAN VISITING. The Hawaiian is a veritable 
Communist at heart. Instead of grasping for all he can 
get, he divides with his neighbor, and confidently expects 
his neighbor to divide with him. It is not an uncommon 
thing for a whole houseful of his friends to drop down on 
him for entertainment and accommodation for a week or 
two at a time, and he gives them royal welcome. When 
they are gone, he, in turn, takes his household with him, 
and makes a similar descent, in the utmost good nature, 
on some one else. 

DWELLINGS. In Honolulu the natives all live in 
wooden houses, as, for the most part, they do in tne 



66 THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

country districts. These houses are constructed so that 
the basement has large openings, and is high enough to 
live in. Here the owner lives, making his bed on native 
mats spread on the ground, and cooking his food in an 
improvised stove made by cutting out the top and part of 
one side of a kerosene oil can. On the floor above are 
his parlor and bed-rooms. The latter are covered with 
Chinese matting, and are furnished with table, chairs, and 
an immaculate bed, with an elaborately worked quilt, and 
a mosquito net. This bedroom is for display and for 
guests. 

HOSPITALITY. The natural hospitality of the Ha- 
waiians is gracious in the extreme. They can not do too 
much to manifest their good-will and desire for your 
comfort. It is not surprising that this kindly spirit has 
been imposed upon and been taken advantage of, so that 
it is more cautiously extended than formerly. In this 
matter there has been in recent years a lamentable lack of 
recognition of favors thus bestowed free-handed. The 
natural impulse of Hawaiians, according to their ability, to 
hospitably entertain strangers is highly creditable to their 
race. Anglo-Saxons must blush for the advantage taken 
of this disposition by men of their own race. The effects 
of such abuse have entailed disease and physical enfeeble- 
ment, and confused the moral sense, never any too strong, 
and needing toning up rather than weakening. 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 69 

A NATIVE FEAST. A luau or native feast is a no- 
table affair. I know of nothing to which it can be 
compared, and it is interesting in every detail from prep- 
aration to consummation. It is rarely under the au- 
spices of a single individual but of several who combine 
forces possibly to lend dignity to the occasion, but 
probably to give it a popular cast and to add to the 
quantity and variety of edibles. Thus some become re- 
sponsible for the supply of poi ; others for the beef and 
pork and fish; others for the Kulolo, a much esteemed 
pudding made of grated cocoanut and taro, and the milk 
of the cocoanut, sweetened and baked ; others still 
agree to furnish the poi-palau, a somewhat similar com- 
pound of poi and sweet potato; while still others engage 
to supply ripe and luscious watermelons, and sometimes 
oranges, bananas and other fruits. One of the most pe- 
culiar dishes is that of limu, a fresh-water moss, that is 
in much esteem as a relish. I ought not to omit, also, 
the roasted and salted Kukui nuts, so prized as a condiment. 

PREPARATION FOR A FEAST. The great event is 
the preparation and cooking of the food in the imu or 
oven. This imu is a round hole, dug in the ground, 
and from two to three feet deep. Great care is selected 
in getting stones to be heated in this oven, for the den- 
ser ones will explode in the great heat. Parties busy 
themselves in gathering these stones, and the necessary 



7 o THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

wood, and in otherwise arranging for the successful 
cooking of the food. Other parties attend to the prep- 
aration of the food for the oven. The beef and pork 
are cut into convenient pieces and wrapped up together 
with fresh young taro leaves, and over all the tough ki 
leaves are bound, and with a deft turn or twist fastened 
securely. The taro leaves, when thus cooked, absorb 
the juices of the beef and pork, and constitute the chief 
tid-bit of native culinary art. The fish are wrapped in 
the same way. While this part of the preparation is 
going on, the fires have been lighted at the imu. Kind- 
ling is first put in the hole, and on top are piled the 
wood and stones, and the fire is kept burning for seve- 
ral hours. Then, the wood being consumed, the stones 
are taken out with a hoe, macerated trunks of banana 
plants are put in to generate steam, and the bundles of 
food and the stones and banana plants are put into the 
imu in layers, the whole being covered with banana 
leaves to protect the food, and with dirt sufficient to 
keep the steam from escaping. The mass is then al- 
lowed to steam for five or six hours, and when taken 
out is put on the table piping hot; every person having 
a bundle of his own, or more if he wishes it. The most 
far-famed cuisine can not furnish more deliciously-cooked 
meats than those that come steaming from a well-man- 
aged Hawaiian imu. 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 71 

ACTION, BUT REACTION. It will be seen that a 
luau entails a good deal of labor, but there is a certain eclat 
about such occasions that gives the requisite zest, and 
natives rarely spare themselves at such times. If such 
industrial spurts could be transformed into systematic and 
continuous application it would be highly advantageous to 
the race. Ordinarily, however, the native lives on the 
memory of such a good time, instead of providing himself 
with more substantial food by the labor of his hands. 
Every such spurt involves a reaction that makes a native 
averse to any further immediate attention to work, either 
for himself or for others. Employers of labor complain 
about these periodic distractions, seriously inconveniencing 
them at times, but they have to adjust themselves to the 
fact that natives will have feasts, and that they will not 
report for work for days afterwards. 

FONDNESS FOR NATURE. The native is a lover 
of nature, and no matter how taxing the toil of a luau may 
be, he will go to the woods for maile, a fragrant vine, and 
for ferns and ki and other plants suitable for decoration. 
He is enthusiastic in making his tables, if ferns spread on 
the ground can be called such, just as attractive as pos- 
sible, and he hangs festoons of ferns and maile all around 
the booth that keeps out the tropic sunshine. 

GUIDING PRINCIPLE IN ALL FEASTS. The Ha- 
waiian is royal in his hospitality, and is generous even to 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

the sacrificing of his last chicken, when the tired traveler 
stops for food and shelter. I certainly have never known 
elsewhc - prodigal and lavish hospitality as H Ji- 

ms accord their friends and guests at their famous 
luaus. These feasts, so far as I have been able to ju 
are entirely dependent, in each instance, on the disposition 
of certain particular pigs to get fat Thus there can be no 
feast without them, but when they are ripe for it, as it w 

is roily immaterial what day is selected to celebrate. 
I or.:r t used two boys from school, at their mother's 
request, that they might go home to a luau in aon 

of the anniversary of their father's death, which oca 
one year previous. When they returned to school it 
unnecessary for them to say, as however they did, wha: 
so evident in every chubby wrinkle of satisfaction, viz., that 
they had had " a good time." I do not know r that it had 
occurred to them to be sufficient. _ :ul that their fat 
had so conveniently died the year before ; probably their 
analysis did not go so far. But the :n a 

high state of ecstacy at their remarkable good fortune in 

g any sort of occasion for the killing of the pig. 
COME, LET US EAT! Such an array of edit 
a luau brings together might well cause even Solomon's 
t boards to bend in despair. This may be the reason 

a genuine, old-fashioned luau is always 3 on 

fems and ki leaves on the ground. It thus comes about 



>» tt~ « d 




THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 75 

that he who would eat on these festive occasions must 
have a stevedore's skill to stow away his legs, and forget 
he has a back. He must also eat with his fingers, for 
really, after all, one can not do anything with a fork at a 
luau. You must untie your bundle of meat, and after 
having got your fingers oily and sticky there is nothing 
more to do but to plunge them into the poi and eat like 
your neighbors. The whole world is kin when you 
scooch on the grass and eat broiled fish with your fingers. 
All the viands are before you, and you eat according to the) 
whim of the moment, there being but one course, albeit 
a very comprehensive one, and you are expected to slight 
no part of it. 

EAT, DRINK AND BE MERRY. After all, the cnief 
feature of a luau is the people. Utmost jollity and good 
nature prevail. Every one's face is aglow, and every 
one's mouth open, and the viands disappear like the 
dew before the sun. Every one talks as he eats, and 
with a fingerful of poi in mid-air, here and there, a big 
Kanaka laughs and shakes his fat sides as he jabbers 
away in the most irresistible style. In such scenes, "eat, 
drink and be merry" is philosophy enough, and the only 
philosophy that can be understood. 

HAWAIIAN SWIMMERS. Every visitor to Honolulu 
has noted the ease and self-possession of Hawaiian boys 
in the water near the wharves at the departure of ocean 



76 THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

steamers. It is the stereotyped thing for tourists to snap 
ten-cent pieces into the water, and watch the boys dive 
for the money. They never fail to get it, and on some 
occasions a particular boy will have quite a mouthful of 
dimes before the steamer gets fairly under way. 

Sometimes sharks come into Honolulu harbor, but 
the natives always manage to know when a shark is 
about, and they rarely get caught. When pursued by 
one, if brought to bay, the native will peer down into 
the water with his keen eyes intent on the tactics of his 
pursuer. The shark must turn before he can snap at 
his expected victim, and just as he turns, the native 
dives, and the great jaws come together with nothing 
between them This is repeated till relief comes, much 
to the perplexity of the clumsy fish. When prepared 
for such an encounter, the native, as he dives, jabs his 
knife into a vulnerable spot in the shark's anatomy, and 
usually wins the day, either by killing his foe or by 
driving him off. 

SURF-BATHING. Surf-bathing is heroic sport. It 
was formerly practiced in honor of kings and chiefs, but 
is on its own account a right royal sport, in every sense of 
the word. It consists in riding a long plank, carefully 
shaped, and with ends rounded, on the crest of great bil- 
lows rolling shorewards. The skill consists in "taking" 
the wave at an opportune moment, and in keeping the 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. /* 

surf-board in such relation to the movement of the billow 
that the latter will propel the rider at a tremendous speed 
toward the shore. Expert surf-riders will rise as they 
rush along, until they stand erect with folded arms, com- 
plete masters of the waves, whom they seem to drive 
before them like horses in a race. Surf-riding, though not 
so frequently witnessed as formerly, is nevertheless yet to 
be seen on special occasions. 

LOST ARTS. Many of the ancient games are lost arts 
to the present generation, who have substituted instead 
base ball and foot ball and boating. In all these they are 
among the best. This comparatively insignificant fact in- 
dicates what is taking place in other and more important 
matters, viz., the evolving of a New Hawaii wholly allied 
to modern thought and modern methods. One can but 
feel sad, however, when anything truly heroic passes out 
of the ken of man. 

CLOTHED, AND IN HIS RIGHT MIND. There is 
a more or less popular impression that Hawaiians are, to a 
fault almost, economical as to the quantity of their wear- 
ing apparel, and not as discreet as they might be in its 
disposition on the person. This is a very natural mis- 
apprehension, inasmuch as the popular mind makes no 
discrimination as to things "way out in the Pacific," and 
so classes all the inhabitants of the various South Pacific 
groups with the Hawaiians, and lays on the latter all the 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

sins of the South Seas. The Hawaiian has his demerits, 
but semi-nudity is not one of them. So far as a certain 
doubtful class of photographs is concerned, it may be said 
of the Hawaiian that he is "clothed and in his right 
mind." He does not always wear broadcloth or sport a 
silk hat, but he wears good honest clothes and so do his 
wife and children. He does not fret himself about shoes, 
though he has them and wears them to church and 
whenever he thinks proper. His daughter, walking into 
town for shopping purposes, will carry her shoes and 
st : :kings under her arm till she nears the town, when she 
will stop by the roadside and put them where they belong. 
His wife, on occasion, will pay fifty cents for a ride in a 
hack, without any sense of incongruity, albeit she does so 
barefooted. 

Probably the best dressed ladies and gentlemen of 
Honolulu are as likely to be on a given occasion Hawaiians 
as foreigners. There is among the poorer natives the 
same love of color, and the same glaring innovations on 
taste, as characterize other nationalities. But among the 
better educated Hawaiians there is a singular aptitude for 
appropriate adorning of the person, and "the style" is 
sedulously cultivated. 

THE FLOWER GIRLS. The flower-girls of Hono- 
lulu are worthy of mention. They come early in the 
morning to one of the thoroughfares, spread their mats on 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 79 

the side-walk, and string their flowers into leis or wreaths 
for sale to the passer-by. On steamer days the sale is 
considerable, for one of the singular customs is to throw 
leis around the necks of departing friends. Many of these 
leis are beautiful, being made of plumeria blossoms, a 
creamy white flower of delicious perfume. Great inge- 
nuity is shown in the combinations of flowers and parts of 
flowers in the manufacture of these wreaths. Occasion- 
ally, to guy some young man, he is literally swathed in 
leis, from his hat to his knees, and looks more like an 
animated conservatory than a human being. 

A GENUINE POLITICIAN. The Hawaiian is a born 
politician. He likes to talk, and a discussion is the delight 
of his heart. But what is more to the purpose, if he has 
had some advantages, he is able to play skillfully on the 
sensibilities of his people, and in gaining his end good 
nature counts for more than logic. He is shrewd and 
knows every avenue to the hearts of his countrymen. 
He is politic in his approaches, and turns every incident 
to his advantage, regardless of inconsistencies and with 
no intelligent regard for the future. All Hawaiians love 
the excitement of an election, and there are few stay-at- 
homes. As a legislator the Hawaiian is deficient in origi- 
nating legislation, but is sharp to see its bearing when some 
one else introduces it. Most of the pernicious measures 
that have been brought before various legislatures in re- 



So THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

cent years were suggested and formulated by interested 
foreigners. The Hawaiian is not constructive. He is a 
good debater, aside from defective logic, and a fluent 
talker, and is just the material to make a demagogue of 
or to fall prey to demagogic arts. 

DECREASE OF HAWAIIANS. The last official cen- 
sus, taken in 1890, shows that the total population at that 
time was 89,990. If we group the half-castes, number- 
ing 6186, with the pure Hawaiians, numbering 34,436, we 
have a total of 40,622, or just 45 per cent, of the total 
population of the country. In other words, 55 per cent, 
of the population has come from abroad. Out of twenty 
men, therefore, representing the ratio of the races, nine 
would be Hawaiian, six would be Asiatics, and five would 
represent Americans and various European nationalities. 

Without going back to the rough estimate made by 
Capt. Cook at the time he visited the Islands, when he 
placed the population at 400,000, it is approximately cor- 
rect to use for comparison the figures obtained in the 
year 1832, when the population was ascertained to be 
130,313. Now the figures of the last census, including 
half-castes among the natives, show a decrease since 
1832 of 89,691 or an average annual decrease of 1546. 
Since i860 the decrease has been 26,362, or about 40 per 
cent, of the population thirty years ago. Notwithstanding 
the notable increase in the number of half-castes, accord- 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 81 

ing to the census of 1890, the actual decrease of natives 
and half-castes combined in the six years since 1884, 
amounted to 4366. 

While this decrease has been steadily going on, 
receiving its impetus long before the discovery of the 
islands by white men, although greatly accelerated be- 
tween the years 1823-185^3, when it reached the alarm- 
ing total of 77,081, or an average annually of 3,854, the 
foreign population since iS^, when it first appears in the 
census, exclusive of Asiatics and Polynesians, increased, 
as per census of 1890, to 19,418 or 916 per cent. 

HALF-CASTES. It is questionable as to the justice 
of classing the half-caste element with the native. There 
are marked divergences, in spite of political affiliations, 
which call for a distinct grouping of these two classes. 
In fact it is claimed, with a good degree of justice, that 
the half-caste element really belongs to the new order 
in the social and physical regeneration that is transform- 
ing the Old Hawaii into the New. Thus, while the native 
Hawaiians decreased 5578 from 1884 to 1890, the half- 
castes in the same time increased 1968. Or to put it 
into percentages, the natives in those six years decreased 
14 per cent, and the half-castes increased 47 per cent. 

AMALGAMATION. The conclusion is irresistible that 
the vitality of the native race is at the ebb, and that its 
future, like that of many other lands, lies in amalgamation 



82 THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

with other races. In this process it is a problem what 
elements in native character will be perpetuated in the 
new order. Shall the heroism and hardihood and simple 
faith and intrepid stalwartness of the race, at its best, 
survive and characterize the new order, or shall the easy 
indolence, and the lack of systematic application and the 
physical exuberance of the race, color the new combina- 
tion? This is a question that forces itself to the front ? 
in face of the fact that while the natives numbered 34,436 
in 1890, the half-castes numbered 6186, or ij per cent, 
of the combined population of the two. Should the cen- 
sus of 1896 maintain anything like the ratio of change 
shown in the census of 1890, the half-caste element 
would then be approximately 10,000, and the native Ha- 
waiian barely 29,000. 

GROWTH OF FOREIGN ELEMENT. These figures 
assume increased interest when the rapid growth of the for- 
eign population is considered. An increase of this element 
in thirty-seven years of over 900 per cent, is prophetic of 
a speedy supremacy of the foreign element, even in point 
of numbers. Even in the six years from 1884 to 1890, 
the children of foreign parents, born in Hawaii, exclusive 
of Asiatic, increased 184 per cent. 

CAUSES OF DECREASE. The New Hawaii, politic- 
ally, socially and industrially, is rapidly emerging from the 
conditions that have so hampered its progress and growth 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 85 

in the past. The sad element in it all is what seems 
/ike the inevitable disappearance of the native race. It 
seems like cruelty to undertake in these last days a diag- 
nosis of the conditions that have induced such a pitiful 
decimation of the race. Undoubtedly the movement had 
its source, and gathered tremendous momentum in the 
conditions of life antecedent to the advent of foreigners. 
Contact with seamen, who bid good-by to God and self- 
restraint in rounding Cape Horn, accelerated the decrease 
by the introduction of diseases that soon poisoned the 
race. The mere change of conditions, from barbarism to 
civilization, has had its blighting effect on the physical vi- 
tality of this people, for such change requires readjustments 
that have not always been intelligently made. These 
largely depend on the individual, but the effect is vital to 
the race to which he belongs. The, contact of the race 
with the Chinese has been distinctly disadvantageous to 
Hawaiians. There are those who still are sanguine that 
the decrease will yet be stayed, and that new conditions 
helpful to the increase of the race are coming into exist- 
ence. Thus, in the district of Kona, on the island of 
Hawaii, the Board of Education has noted a remarkable 
increase in the number of native children, five and six to 
a family being not an uncommon thing. It is noted that 
in this district the Hawaiians are more by themselves, and 
less subjected to certain conditions connected with prox- 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

imity to centres of mixed population. It is also argued 
that adverse conditions have in other respects largely 
spent their force, and that a period of race recuperation 
may now be expected to se: in. No one who has lived 
among H ans, and has learned to love them for their 
many good traits, can but hope that this interesting 
people may survive and make an honored place for 
themselves in the future of that land, as their fathers, 
in so many instates, carved out an heroic career in 
the pas:. 

ABILITY TO READ AND WRITE. It is rarely the 
case that an Hawaiian can be found who does not know 
how to read and write. They have half a dozen n^ 
r^rers in their own language, which is still commonly 
used among them, although the instruction in the schools 
of all grades is almost wholly in the English language, and 
few natives under twenty years of age can be found who 
are not able to understand and use English sufficient for 
ordinary purposes. The text-books in their schools are 
:, and up to the times. The fces : .ers are to a 

_r extent Americans, this being ally true in the 

more advanced schools, where it is unusual to find in- 
structors of any other nationality. This has always been 
the case, and to this fact mus: :dited the ready adop- 

tion of American ideas and sentiment and the kindly 
feeling of Hawaiians of all classes toward the United 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 87 

States as Hawaii's nearest neighbor, and uniformly its 
best friend, in all its intercourse and contact with other 
nations. 

AMERICAN SENTIMENT. This Americanism of Ha- 
waiians manifests itself on the Fourth of July, which is 
by far the most popular holiday of the year, being cele- 
brated with a gusto, as it is awaited with an interest that 
characterizes none of the days commemorative of events 
in their own history. Moreover, the schools, by the use 
of American text-books, foster a knowledge of American 
history, and supply a fund of general information pertain- 
ing to the growth and progress of the United States, that 
has stimulated an interest in everything American. The 
excitement over a Presidential election in the United States 
laps over into Hawaii, and it is doubtful whether the peo- 
ple in some of our territories manifest a more genuine 
interest or concern in the result than these sons of the 
tropics. 

RELIGION. The Hawaiian is not an indifferentist in 
religion. His religious instincts may carry him to ex- 
tremes from modern Christianity to a resuscitated heath- 
enism, and he may not be able himself to tell where he 
belongs at times. He needs a rudder to guide him in 
these respects, as in many others. He is not peculiar in 
this, as the world goes, and it simply indicates in Hawaii, 
as eisewhere, the disposition to take up with what is 



SS THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

novel, — with a nuhou, as the Hawaiian expresses it, with 
a "fad" as we Anglo-Saxons more concisely put it. The 
great majority of Hawaiians, however, are adherents to 
Christianity, either as Catholics or Protestants. It is in 
the sphere of religious life and effort that Hawaiians have 
displayed the finest courage and steadfastness and win- 
someness of character. The political and social changes 
of the last twenty years have borne heavily on the work 
of the churches, scattered as they are all over the group, 
hardly the smallest hamlet being without its church build- 
ing and organization. Deprived as the native ministers 
have been in these later years of the sagacious counsel of 
the missionaries who have passed from the scene of their 
former labors, these Hawaiian pastors have nobly, and at 
great sacrifice, labored for the spiritual advancement of 
their people. There are, in many an humble pulpit in out- 
of-the-way places on those islands, modern types of a 
heroism akin to the brave deed of the immortal Kapiolani, 
who, in the trying days when Hawaiian heathenism ral- 
lied for its final contest with Christianity, defied the god- 
dess Pele, on the brink of the boiling lake of lava, and 
cast her commanding influence against the priests and 
their superstitions, and led her people to accept the new 
faith. Whatever the years may bring to Hawaii and her 
people, the world will never forget the strain of heroism 
in her history. 




THE HAWAIIAN WOMAN IN PAIL— The Hawaiian woman is in her element 
on horseback; the flowing folds of the gorgeously colored "Pan," draping the 
horse on both sides, her head and neck bedecked with (lowers, she makes a brilliant 
picture on gala days. Sometimes thirty or forty at oner e,o dashing through the 
streets of the city, their horses at full gallop, up hill and down at breakneck pace, 



THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 91 

HAWAIIANS AND NEW HAWAII. The evolution 
of political and industrial forces within her borders has 
introduced to the world a New Hawaii. What is to be 
the place of the aborigine in this new order ? Plainly, it 
is to be just what the native Hawaiian will make for him- 
self. It needs to be clearly understood that the native 
Hawaiian has been a full sharer in every constitutional 
gain achieved under Anglo-Saxon leadership. There is 
not the slightest distinction in Hawaii on the ground of 
color. There is the most cordial fellowship between Ha- 
waiians and foreigners, notwithstanding radical political 
differences, especially in the city of Honolulu. There has 
been for years vital political union between the present 
rulers of Hawaii and the best of native Hawaiians, and in 
the present movement for annexation there are vigorous 
native annexation clubs representing at least twenty-five 
per cent, uf the native voting population. Those who are 
acquainted with Hawaiian indisposition to take sides on a 
matter of doubtful issue appreciate the meaning of these 
figures. It is likely that reasonable delay in the organiza- 
tion of a permanent government will win over a majority 
of Hawaiians whose rights are to be carefully guarded, 
and whose privileges are to be enlarged rather than 
diminished. 

But what of the native aside from political privilege ? 
Again, he as every encouragement and help to maintain a 



92 THE NATIVE HAWAIIAN. 

place for himself. He is offered singularly favorable op- 
portunities for industrial training in the Kamehameha 
Manual Training Schools. These are privileges not yet 
accorded to students of any other nationality. He has, 
moreover, every incentive in the perfect freedom afforded 
him in all his relations. He has none of the race obstacles 
to overcome which in other lands prove such a hindrance 
to individual freedom. The New Hawaii will emancipate 
the Hawaiian from a spirit of obsequiousness toward royal 
personages which has proved harmful to the freest de- 
velopment of political independence, and it will also com- 
pel him to look out for himself. The Hawaiian to-day 
would be a better man and citizen if he had learned the 
lesson of taking care of himself. 

Under the rule of chiefs he had no option. He could 
not act for himself. So under the monarchy he did not 
outgrow his feeling of dependence, which has been mis- 
takenly fostered by foreigners of benevolent intent, who 
have perpetuated in some degree the relationship of the 
old chiefs and have helped the native to school his 
children, and to bury his dead, and to furnish him means 
to start a new enterprise. Competition now will put the 
Kanaka to his mettle. He will have a fair chance. He 
cannot claim more. If he maintains his place, it will be 
by putting his strength and skill to the test, and by per- 
sistence and pluck winning success as others win it. 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 

• LIQUID SUNSHINE. The Hawaiians have no word 

for " weather," for they have nothing of the kind. The 

days are pretty much the same the year around. The sun 

shines or the rain falls or the wind blows, but none of 

them in an uncomfortable way. In fact in Hilo, on the 

large island of Hawaii, the sun shines through the rain, 

making what people call "liquid sunshine." It is rarely 

that the sun or the wind or the rain, or all combined, 

interfere with business or even with out-door work. 

There are storms of rain, to be sure, that last for several 

days, during which there is a heavy downfall, but these 

storms are not common, occurring seldom more than once 

or twice in a year, and there are always great "junks" 

of sunshine just before and after that make you feel 

that you have had a sort of celestial bath rather than a 

spell of weather. Ordinarily, however, the rain and the 

sunshine are on better and more intimate terms and run 

along together throughout the year, one keeping the air 

warm enough, and the other keeping it from getting too 

warm, so that the climate well-nigh reaches perfection. 

Such is the elevation of the interior of the Islands, that 

it is possible, with a comparatively slight change of Ioca- 
93 



94 CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 

tion, to secure a decided change in temperature. Residents 
avail themselves of this advantage, and go to the hills 
when they feel the need of a tonic. With the further 
development of the Islands, in the matter of roads and 
convenient means of transportation, larger advantage still 
will be taken of this opportunity, close at hand, to break 
the monotony of continual summer by a few weeks in 
the bracing atmosphere of the mountain slopes. 

At sea-level the extremes of heat and cold are jj° and 
89 Fahrenheit. The thermometer rarely touches either 
point. When it falls to £3° it is because of an exception- 
ally clear sky at night in January, permitting the cold winds 
from the mountains to blow, unobstructed by the usual 
bank of heavy clouds that hug the ridges. The ther- 
mometer rises to 89 at mid-day only when people in 
the United States are suffering from the excessive heat 
of the nineties and over. The mean daily temperature 
for January, for a series of years, has been 7 1 °, while for 
July it has been only seven degrees higher, or 78 . 

EQUABLE CLIMATE. The equableness of the cli- 
mate is remarkable, but the comparatively low tempera- 
ture for a tropical country is still more remarkable. Thus 
Key West, Florida, which is 3 16" farther north, has a 
mean temperature throughout the year of 76 , while that 
of Honolulu is only 75°. Havana, Cuba, although two 
degrees farther north, has a mean temperature of four 




ALLIGATOR PEARS.— The Alligator, or as it is more usually called, the Avo- 
cado Pear, is common in the West Indies and Mexico. When introduced into 
the Hawaiian Islands it was found that it couid be easily cultivated there. The 
trees grow to a large size, and are very prolific. 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 97 

degrees warmer than that of Honolulu. The causes of 
this equable and comfortable climate are to be found 
largely in the isolated insular position of Hawaii. The 
surrounding ocean, both by evaporation and by means of 
cold currents from the north, greatly modifies the tem- 
perature of what might otherwise be an uncomfortably 
hot climate. The lofty mountain structure of the Islands, 
inducing, as it does, a liberal rain-fall in the higher re- 
gions, also operates to reduce heat and to maintan an 
equable temperature throughout the year. Another effect- 
ive element in securing this result is the trade-wind, cool 
and moist for nine months of the year, bringing health 
and refreshment to all that breathe. The land breezes at 
night are a considerable factor in producing a grateful 
change between day and night temperatures, so that the 
hours of sleep are in a marked degree comfortable and 
refreshing. 

These various causes, always operating, produce a 
uniform result, and, as a consequence, the Islands have 
a charming climate, suited to the residence of a population 
from more temperate climes, with none of the disadvan- 
tages which attend life in so many other tropical lands. 

HEALTH FULNESS. Moreover, the climatic conditions 
and the structure of the Islands are favorable to health. 
The soil is porous, the land slopes seaward on every hand, 
and the numerous streams serve to cleanse the land of all 



9 3 CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 

offensive matter productive of disease. The winds bear 
seaward, also, deleterious matter, thus performing a double 
office in the interest of good health. Diseases of colder 
climates, not being accompanied in Hawaii by the same 
aggravating conditions, are not as contagious nor as viru- 
lent, and some of them are practically unknown. Epi- 
demics are not of frequent occurrence, and the more fatal 
diseases are especially sporadic. It is comparatively easy 
to maintain an effective quarantine, and the distance from 
other land on every side is in itself not a small protection 
against the introduction of disease. 

The mortality report for the city of Honolulu for the 
year 1892 shows a death rate of 30.60. These figures 
alone would indicate that Honolulu was a decidedly un- 
healthful city. But it should be noted that this large 
percentage is due to the alarming mortality among Ha- 
waiians, which for the two years, 189 1-2, amounted each 
year to 39 per cent, of the native population resident in 
Honolulu. During the same years the mortality among 
the Americans and British residents varied from 14 per 
cent, to 18 per cent. Among the Portuguese, and the 
Asiatics, subjected to the same conditions as Hawaiians, as 
to location and dwellings, the mortality in 1891 was only 
18 per cent, and 19 per cent, respectively. So that, aside 
from the excessive mortality among Hawaiians, due to 
causes not operative among other nationalities, and not 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 99 

related to general health conditions, it will be seen that 
Honolulu is a remarkably healthful city. What is true of 
Honolulu, in this respect, is also true of all other localities. 

In this connection, it is well to note the disastrous 
inroads made by the cholera in 180^, when one-half of 
the native population of Oahu died; by the measles in 
1848, when it was estimated that one-tenth of the entire 
native population of the Islands died; and by the small- 
pox in 1 8 j j, which carried away about three thousand 
natives. The measles and small-pox have on several 
occasions since been epidemic on the Islands, but because 
of better quarantine regulations, and by reason of greater 
intelligence among the people, there has been no repetition 
of this first disastrous contact of the natives with imported 
diseases. 

These dismal records belong to the past. The present 
decrease of the race is painful to contemplate, but it has 
little to do with the climate, and has no relation to the 
desirability of a residence in this land of apparent con- 
tradictions. Hawaii has a climate unsurpassed, and is, in 
every respect, a desirable resort for those wishing to avoid 
the extreme heat and cold of more northern climes, and 
a veritable haven for invalids, where they may prolong 
their lives and enjoy out-door exercise amid perpetual 
bloom and loveliness. 

INDIGENOUS PLANTS. The humid atmosphere of 



ioo CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 

the mountain ranges induces a most luxuriant growth of 
trees and vines, and an almost impenetrable thicket or 
jungle covers a large part of the interior of Hawaii, 
especially. Here are forests of magnificent trees whose 
wood is beautifully marked and colored and takes a high 
polish. Mammoth tree ferns thirty feet high lend added 
beauty to these tropical forests, but the ie ie vine is by far 
the most luxuriant and gorgeous plant of Hawaiian jungles. 
These are all indigenous plants, and it is in such places, wild 
and well-nigh inaccessible, that one gets a glimpse of the 
beauty and reckless exuberance of tropical growth. 
Writes Miss Sinclair, in her " Indigenous Flowers of the 
Hawaiian Islands:" "The Hawaiian flora seems (like the 
native human inhabitant) to grow in an easy, careless way, 
which, though pleasingly artistic, and well adapted to what 
may be termed the natural state of the Islands, will not 
long survive the invasion of foreign plants and changed 
conditions. Forest fires, animals, and agriculture, have so 
changed the Islands, within the last fifty or sixty years, 
that one can now travel for miles, in some districts, with- 
out finding a single indigenous plant; the ground being 
wholly taken possession of by weeds, shrubs, and grasses, 
imported from various countries. It is remarkable that 
plants from both tropical and temperate regions seem to 
thrive equally well on these Islands, many of them spread- 
ing as if by magic, and rapidly exterminating much of the 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 101 

native flora." While all this is true out in the open, and 
on the borders of the woodlands, it is in no sense true of 
Hawaiian forests, where indigenous trees and vines still 
hold undisputed sway. The wonderful productiveness of 
the Hilo district is due not to its fertile soil but to the 
unfailing water supply from the vast wooded swamp just 
above that district. Here is a vast belt of primitive forest 
massed below in a net-work of vines that can be passed 
through only by cutting. Below is a deep, rich soil con- 
stantly being borne by thousands of streams to the sloping 
lands along the coast. This is the forest primeval, which 
must be seen to get any appreciable idea of the indigenous 
plant growth of this group. 

Writes Miss Sinclair: "For many years the iliahi or 
sandal-wood tree was one of the principal sources of 
revenue of the Hawaiian kings and chiefs. So vigorously 
did they prosecute the business of cutting and exporting 
it, that they exhausted the supply, and to-day it is a very 
rare tree, although frequently found as a shrub. It retains 
its scent in a wonderful manner, even small pieces being 
quite fragrant after a lapse of forty or fifty years. ,, 

Bananas, yams, taro and other edible plants are found 
growing wild in all the valleys of the wooded sections. 
Many plants, formerly used by the natives for making fish- 
nets, and kapa or native cloth and ropes, still are found in 
the valleys and on the slopes of wooded hills. 



102 CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 

OWNERSHIP OF LAND. Formerly all the lands 

belonged to the kings and chiefs. The common people, 
however, had the privilege, hedged about by a system of 
tabus and traditions, of going to the woods for what they 
wanted. " Great numbers of the inhabitants/' writes Miss 
Sinclair, "went into the mountain districts annually, for 
various purposes, such as canoe-making, bird-catching, 
wood cutting, gathering medicinal herbs, and many other 
pursuits of pleasure or profit." This privilege was a small 
return for what was at best practical serfdom. Ideas of 
land ownership have been at best a slow growth in the 
native mind. After the abolition of the tabu-system, a 
dependent relation still was recognized that has survived 
in a measure even to the present time, so that natives 
continue to live on land and claim privileges which they 
never have had any legal right to. 

LAND AWARDS. So strong was the disposition of 
the common people to adhere to the old system of de- 
pendence on the pleasure of chiefs for land and its use, 
that many of them did not avail themselves of the oppor- 
tunity granted in 1847 by Kamehameha III. to gain title, 
through a land commission, to the lands at that time oc- 
cupied by them. In a population of over 100,000, only 
about 1 1 ,000 claims were recorded. This indisposition to 
become owners of land has in later days shown itself in 
a readiness to part with such lands rather than work 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 103 

them. This fact must be borne in mind in any compre- 
hensive consideration of the drift of Hawaiians away 
from the soil to an uncertain life and employment in the 
city. But it must also be borne in mind that 9 per cent, 
of the entire native population, counting men, women 
and children, are actual land-owners, according to the 
census of 1890; or, excluding the women and children, 25 
per cent, of the native male population over fifteen years 
of age, representatives of the households of the race, are 
land-owners, or one man in four, either owning the land 
in his own name or in that of his wife or of some one of 
his children. Such a fact condemns at once the cheap 
statement that Hawaiians have been robbed of their land. 
In many instances they still own some of the very best 
land in the country, and in some instances receive a prof- 
itable revenue by leasing such lands to plantations and 
rice planters. 

CROWN LANDS. In the great maneie or division 
of lands under Kamehameha III., those lands reserv- 
ed by the king for his own use and the use of his 
heirs are known as Crown Lands. These lands are 
very extensive, capable of improvement that would 
greatly increase their value, and while hitherto the in- 
come has been one of the perquisites of royalty, it is 
now proposed, as rapidly as possible, to divide this vast 
estate into homesteads for the encouragement of small 



104 CLIMATE. SOIL AXD PRODUCTIONS. 

farming, preference being given in the assigment of lands 
to native Hawaiians. 

There are three estates comprising a large part of the 
land available for farming. The lands known as Crown 
Lands form one of these, the government lands or lands 
held by the government as a source of revenue and for 
the public good form another, and the Bishop estate forms 
the third. The government lands are already being sub- 
divided and leased or sold outright to intending settlers, 
the purpose being to stimulate ownership in the soil and 
to aid the development of small industries. The Bishop 
estate is the most valuable one of the three, probably, and 
is being steadily enhanced in value by improvements. 
This estate is held in trust by trustees who manage the 
estate and expend the income in sustaining the now 
renowned Kamehameha Schools. This estate was the 
bequest of Princess Pauahi, the wife of Hon. C. R. Bishop, 
to whose beneficence her husband has generously added 
a large sum in defraying the expense of erecting some of 
the handsome buildings on the school grounds. It is felt 
by some that this estate should ultimately and gradually 
be broken up and sold, just as is being done with govern- 
ment lands, and as it is proposed to do with the Crown 
Lands. 

FOREIGN ENTERPRISE. A very considerable por- 
tion of the land now under cultivation was comparatively 





mm 




BEAUTIFUL PALMS, II is difficult to give any ideaoi the luxuriant growth and 

beauty of the trees and flowers thai border the streets of Honolulu. No photographer, 

ill colorless black and white, can do justice to the gardens of the tropics with their 

graceful palmsand the soft shading of the many varieties of foliage. 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 107 

valueless until foreign enterprise and capital reclaimed it. 
Much of it was arid and so forbidding that in some cases 
it had never come under cultivation until within a very 
few years. These lands were worthless for Hawaiian 
farming and would have remained an unproductive area 
had it not been for foreign capital and energy and grit. 
Thus the largest plantation at Spreckelsville, the two re- 
markable plantations at Ewa and Makaweli, to say nothing 
of others, show what American enterprise can accomplish 
in the face of grave difficulties. 

At Spreckelsville, an immense area of sandy plain was 
brought under cultivation by the digging of an irrigating 
ditch conveying water from mountain streams seventeen 
miles away. The original ditch of this kind was con- 
structed for the Haiku lands in 1878 at a cost of $80,000. 
It was over thirteen miles long, the larger part being dug 
through dense woods, provisions for the small army of 
workers being transported to the camps, as they moved 
onward, by means of roads cut through the virgin forests. 
Two hundred men were employed on this ditch and it 
required a year to build it, but, when finished, it brought 
water on to lands that now constitute one of the best 
sugar estates on the Islands. An enterprise requiring a 
larger expenditure and encountering greater difficulties was 
the Makaweli ditch on the island of Kauai. The water for 
this ditch is taken from a large stream just below the 



108 CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 

beautiful Hanapepe falls. The ditch is thirteen and a half 
miles long. In the first seven miles from the point where 
the water is taken from the stream, there were 16,000 feet 
of ditching, two miles of which was through the solid 
rock; 12,000 feet of wooden fluming, requiring 600,000 
feet of redwood lumber ; 6,000 feet of steel piping, forty 
inches in diameter, and from one-eighth to five-sixteenths 
of an inch in thickness; and over one thousand feet of 
tunneling through solid rock. Four substantial iron 
bridges carry the pipe across the canyon, three with a 
span of 100 feet each, and one with a span of 140 feet. 
Several inverted siphons were used, one being 400 feet 
deep and 1900 feet long. 

The entire cost was $152,013. The capacity of the 
ditch is 60 cubic feet per second, or 5,184,000 gallons per 
day. An ancient crater was utilized as a storage reservoir, 
having a capacity of 43,000,000 gallons, being 900 feet 
across at the top and 30 feet deep. The land made avail- 
able for cultivation by the construction of this ditch is 
about 7000 acres in extent, making the cost for the original 
outlay about $22 per acre. Nothing but dauntless energy 
could have undertaken and consummated such an enter- 
prise. The man who did it is the originator of the Haiku 
ditch, — a man who has individually done more for the 
industrial development of Hawaii than any other person, 
albeit the son of a missionary. Beginning as a poor man, 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 109 

and more than once jeopardizing all his gains by daring 
schemes, demanding large capital and indomitable energy, 
it is doubtful whether he could have contributed, in any 
other way, a larger permanent blessing to the land of his 
birth than he has by his phenomenal success in converting 
large waste areas into waving fields of cane. 

The Ewa plantation is on land that was unsuitable 
even for pasturage until American capital and enterprise 
conceived the project of irrigating those barren plains by 
means of artesian water, pumped into flumes, and borne 
to the fields as wanted. Accordingly twenty-four artesian 
wells were sunk, in close proximity, and enormous pumps 
erected, and there is now a supply from this source with- 
out any indications of a decrease in the flow, of 20,000,000 
gallons per day. 

BENEFICENT MISSION OF AMERICAN CAPITAL. 
It may truthfully be said that American capital and enter- 
prise have largely exerted themselves in Hawaii in making 
lands productive that were unproductive, and in doing this 
native land holdings have not been affected, except as 
they have appreciated in value due to their proximity to a 
market for their products thus created almost at their door. 
The industrial development of Hawaii under American 
leadership marks an epoch hardly less phenomenal than 
the great religious awakening under the devoted labors 
of American missionaries. This development was rapid, 



no CLIMATE. SOIL AND PRODUCT] ! 5. 

under the forcing stimulus of the Reciprocity Treaty 

l the United States, and revolutionized the industrial 

::ons of the country. So rar this development 

that it was not altogether in wise directions. Some vital 

\ems are yet unsettled, and othe still to be met, 

incidental to this marvelous expansion of Ha _ - 

cultural resources. 

LABOR PROBLEMS. Cane growing by the planta- 
tion system has meant to Hawaii what it has to other 
sugar-growing countries, viz., the employment of an ig- 
norant class of laborers working at lo ges, and the 
ignoring and crippling of small industries so essential to 
the wholesome growth of agricultural communities. To 
properly man the plantations, Chinese. Japanese and Por- 
tugese laborers have been imported into Hawaii, the I 
soon lea\ing the plantations for other employment, nota- 
bly small farming. The J se have returned in large 
numbers to their own country 7 , and yet counted in 1891 
about 17,000, the Chinese population at that time being 
about i), 000, although in 1889 they numbered over 19,000. 
So long as the Chinese and Japanese remained on the 
sugar and rice plantations there was no labor agitation in 
vaiL But when, in 1885, the Chinese began to invade 
other occupations, followed later by a like invasion, on a 
sma'. :he Japanese, the Asiatic question be- 
came the leading political issue. It was not whether 




COCOANUT PALMS.— The Cocoanut Palms are natives of all the Islands In 
the Pacific. They are found where nothing else can grow, fringing the shores 
of the smallest coral reefs that rise above the ocean. The long slender trunks 
often reach the height of a hundred feet. 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 113 

Asiatics should be tolerated, but whether Anglo-Saxon 
civilization should protect itself against threatened sub- 
mergence. Restrictive legislation was the immediate out- 
come, but the real problem remains yet for solution. A 
vigorous, intelligent and influential element in the foreign 
population of Hawaii are convinced that the true policy in 
that land is to build up a thrifty, law-abiding community 
of small farmers. Hon. S. B. Dole, the President of the 
Provisional Government, indicated this conviction in re- 
marks made by him before the Advisory Council in May, 
1893. "It is easy to understand," he says, "that certain 
radical changes in the land policy of the Hawaiian Islands 
would cause havoc in important established enterprises, 
especially if abruptly made. On the other hand, it is a 
matter of rapidly growing sentiment in the Hawaiian com- 
munity that a liberal policy of opening for settlement suit- 
able portions of the public lands by actual occupiers, has 
become a necessity to the social and industrial progress 
of our varied population. This sentiment is emphasized 
by a rapidly increasing demand for land in small parcels 
for cultivation and residence. It is the desire of the 
executive, if circumstances permit, to inaugurate a 
comprehensive policy of opening public land for settle- 
ment and cultivation in answer to this public demand, 
which, without interfering with established industrial 
enterprises, may lay the foundation for individual wvl- 



n 4 CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 

fare and contentment, and therefore of enhanced public 
prosperity." 

CO-OPERATIVE CANE PLANTING. In line with 
this sentiment, successful experiments have been under- 
taken by sugar planters to modify even the plantation 
system, so as to relieve the country from the necessity of 
importing cheap labor under the contract system. The 
co-operative system of cane-growing as managed at Ewa 
plantation for the past two years is likely to be extended. 
The individual receives thus a larger income than when 
working for wages, and the owners have lost nothing by 
the change. The system in brief consists in the assign- 
ment to each individual of a piece of land for cultivation, 
the plantation owner furnishing lodging for the man and 
his family, medicine and medical attendance, first equip- 
ment of tools, water for irrigating, seed cane, and the 
privilege of procuring fuel by the tenant for himself. 
The employer, likewise, clears, plows, harrows, and fur- 
rows the land preparatory to planting. The tenant, on his 
part, plants, cultivates, cuts, and delivers the cane on the 
cars for transportation to the mill. All the work is under 
the supervision of the manager, in the sense that, 
irrespective of the hours of labor, the work done must be 
satisfactory to the interests of the plantation. One-fourth 
of the gross receipts from the land thus assigned goes to 
the laborer, after deducting advances made to him. Else- 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 115 

where than at Ewa, co-operative cane-planting has been 
experimented with and with uniform success. 

This presages a radical change in the labor system of 
Hawaiian plantations. The great advantage of the co- 
operative plan lies in stimulating an individual interest in 
this important industry and in attaching to the soil a 
permanent class of farmers. Successfully adapted to all 
plantations it would obviate the necessity of importing 
laborers from abroad, and would conserve the interests of 
Anglo-Saxon civilization. 

LEASEHOLD SYSTEM. The location on the land of 
a class of farmers, identified with the industrial interests 
of the owners of such land, means ultimately the acqui- 
sition by lease of lands thus worked, and perhaps their 
ownership in due course in fee simple. One scheme that 
has been broached aims at a complete reorganization of 
the plantation system. It provides for the gradual dis- 
memberment of the large sugar estates into leaseholds of 
from five to twenty or thirty acres each, according to 
locality. These leaseholds are to be taken up by respon- 
sible laborers who wish to make the getting of such a 
home dependent on their industry, frugality and enter- 
prise. Such leaseholds could be leased for a term of 
years, with proper conditions that would secure the inter- 
ests of the mill-owners, and not operate against the in- 
terests of the industrious planter. Eventually, the planter 



u6 CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 

becoming attached to the land, and the mill-owner rec- 
ognizing the reliability of the tenant, the land could be 
deeded over to the tenant. This would hardly prove too 
expensive an inducement for the mill-owners to offer to 
planters, considering the value of permanent settlers on 
the land, engaged in cane-growing. The urgent reforms 
needed in Hawaii, and likely soon to be accomplished, are 
(i) the placing of more of its people on land of their 
own, thus encouraging thrift and contentment and social 
progress, and (2) the management of the chief industry 
so as to contribute toward the same general result. 
These are popular reforms in Hawaii. There is a natural 
hesitancy as to the method of accomplishing what there 
is general unanimity in agreeing to be Hawaii's ultimate 
social and industrial constitution. This little country is at 
work on serious problems, affecting the social and indus- 
trial status of its population, but it is at work on right 
lines, and its intelligent and influential citizens may be 
counted on to serve their adopted land in these directions 
as ably as they have in others. 

CANE FIELDS. Sugar is king in Hawaii much as 
wheat is in the Northwest. It is not the only crop that 
can be raised, or that is raised, but it is at present the most 
available and profitable one, and therefore engages the 
capital of the country and furnishes work to the largest 
number. Thus, in 1890, there were 18,959 laborers em- 




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CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 119 

ployed on the plantations. This does not include skilled 
laborers or those dependent for wages or salary on the 
prosperity of this industry, not directly connected with 
plantation work. The land under cane cultivation in 1890 
amounted to 64,149 acres, located on the four islands of 
Hawaii, Maui, Oahu, and Kauai. This land is divided into 
about sixty plantations, producing each from 300 to 13,000 
tons of sugar per annum, the total product in 1893 amount- 
ing to 152,621 tons. 

When we go out into the country, however, we forget 
about figures and rather marvel at the extensive fields of 
growing cane, at the steam plows and steam cultivators, at 
the complicated system of irrigation, at the steam cars and 
portable railways, at the magnificent flow of artesian water, 
at the costly flumes, and well appointed mills equipped 
with the latest improved machinery, and the novel expe- 
dients for shipping sugar on a dangerous coast, and the 
whole atmosphere of doing things on a large scale in a 
land of otherwise small things. Think of passing through 
cane that yields ten tons of sugar per acre 1 That means 
not less than one hundred tons of plant growth to the 
acre, for at the rate of eight and a half tons of cane, as 
carried to the mill, per ton of sugar, as generally estimated, 
we should have eighty-five tons, and the tops and stools 
left in the field would certainly make fifteen tons more. 
Such a yield, however, is exceptional, occurring only on 



120 CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 

specially rich alluvial soil, the ordinary yield being only 
about three tons per acre. As it requires from eighteen to 
twenty months for a crop to mature, it will be understood 
why the annual output as stated in the census of 1890 is 
only about two tons per acre. 

It is an inspiring experience to ride through a cane-field 
a thousand or more acres in extent. In such a trip, at the 
busiest season, one can see the cane in all stages of 
growth, and note all the varied work of planting, cultivat- 
ing, irrigating, stripping, cutting, transporting to the mill, 
and clearing for the new crop. Here is a gang of China- 
men, slashing right and left as they cut the cane for the 
mill. Yonder a long train of cars is being backed by a 
locomotive through the tall cane to be loaded for the mill. 
Here is a field dotted with Japanese in their airy garb, 
planting the seed cane. Yonder some noisy Hawaiians 
are driving bullock carts with bags of plant cane. This 
may be a plantation and these may be coolies, but man 
who works by the sweat of his brow has nowhere an 
easier lot or is better paid for his labor at its true value 
than right here on these cane-fields of Hawaii. With a 
proper adjustment of conditions favorable to a permanent 
residence, the same work now done by Chinese and 
Japanese could be profitably done by many American 
farmers at greater advantage to their pockets and peace of 
mind than by continued toiling in the homeland in an 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 121 

uphill struggle with winter and mortgage and a failure of 
crops. 

SUGAR-MAKING. The heaviest investment of capi- 
tal in the sugar business is in the mill. The progress in 
mill methods and machinery has been marvellous in the 
history of sugar-making in Hawaii. From the crude 
wooden affair run by mules, to the elaborate and per- 
fected maceration or diffusion plants, now installed in all 
the mills, is a notable advance. The diffusion process is 
in highest favor, though there are strong advocates of the 
maceration system. The latter consists in grinding to ex- 
tract the bulk of the juice, and then, after having subjected 
the crushed cane to a thorough saturation with steam, in 
regrinding the mass to secure all the additional juice pos- 
sible. The diffusion process consists in cutting the cane 
by means of revolving knives into thin slices, which in 
turn are submitted to hydraulic and steam pressure, prac- 
tically expelling about 97 per cent, of the sugar. After 
the juice is thus extracted it passes through filters into 
clarifiers, where it is heated and skimmed, passing thence 
into the quadruple effect from large connected boilers. 
These boilers ordinarily hold four thousand gallons, and 
the amount boiled every twenty-four hours is not far from 
38^,000 gallons. From these boilers the syrup passes into 
cooling tanks ; thence into vacuum pans, where it is boiled 
until it granulates, passing finally into large containers. 



I 2: 



CLIMATE. SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 



From these containers it passes into centrifugals, which free 
it of all molasses or syrup, and the sugar, all ready : r 
bagging, drops into the bin below. Day and night in 
grinding-time the work goes steadily on. Each mill has 
its electric plant, and every convenience for the econom- 
ical manufacture of this great staple. The fitting climax 
of the work in the field and in the mill is in the pe 
of the comfortable Kanaka teamster who, perched on his 
load of sugar just bagged, regales himself with a juicy stick 
of car.e. What a contrast between our labored p: 
of procuring our sweetening, and his getting at once to 
the marrow of things! 

RICE GROWING. The rice fields are all in the hands 
of the Chinese. They do not own the land, to be sure, 
but they do monopolize the business. This is not because 
they have crowded out others by competition, but bee; 
they are the only ones who understand rice-growing, 
who :are to have amthing to do with it. It is not an un- 
profitable crop, but an exacting one in ways not altogether 
agreeable. Thus, after the necessary plowing and har- 
rowing, the rice fields are submerged, and all the work 
thereafter must be done in the water. Chinamen take 
to this work like ducks, though ordinarily they hav 
:er. 

It is interesting to compare the methods of cultivation 
and the means employed on a rice swamp with the 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 123 

methods and means used on a sugar plantation. On the 
latter, advantage is taken of every labor-saving device, 
and the methods are modern and in keeping with agri- 
cultural progress. On, or rather in, a rice swamp, the 
tools and appliances are crude and primitive, and the 
methods are those followed probably a thousand years 
ago in conservative China. Chinese buffaloes, a sort of 
half-cow and half-pig, who never have known in any 
preceding generation what it was to do anything else, 
leisurely toil along with the crudest kind of a wooden 
plow turning the rich soil to the air. One small field 
is thickly sown with rice seed, so that the plants are 
about six inches high when the time for planting arrives, 
making a solid carpet of green, so peculiar that it reminds 
one of the old hymn : — 

"Sweet fields beyond *ie swelling flood 
Stand dressed in living green." 

These plants are carried in great bales on the backs 
of Chinamen to the fields where the planting is going 
on. Here the bales are broken up, each man taking 
enough for a row and planting with one hand by stoop- 
ing and pushing a half-dozen plants, root down, into the 
mud below the surface of the water. Chinese exactness 
shows itself here in the accuracy with which these rows 
are kept straight and at equal distances apart. All the culti- 



i2 4 CLIMATE, SOIL AXD PRODUCTIONS. 

vating is done by hand without tools of any kind. Finally, 
after the rice matures, and the water has been drained off 
for the ripening of the straw, the Chinamen harvest their 
crop with little hand-sickles, an infantile operation that 
makes one dream of Eden. After a day of drying in the 
sun, the rice is bundled up by hand, a bale hung on each 
end of a stick, which is lifted to the shoulders of a China- 
man, and a procession of twenty or more thus ladened, 
move in a dog-trot to the threshing floor, a quarter of a 
mile away. The operations on a rice field are engrossing 
because so unique, but one always comes away with a 
sensation of tiredness and a new conception of the an- 
tiquity of man. 

COFFEE GROWING. The soil in a great many parts 
of Hawaii, which is unfitted for sugar or rice growing, is 
admirably adapted to the growth of coffee. As a result of 
the investigations conducted by experts from other coffee 
countries, renewed stimulus has been given to the coffee 
industry. At last reports over two thousand acres had 
been planted in accordance with improved methods, and 
this industry bids fair in the near future to become second 
only to that of sugar. The excellent feature about coffee 
planting is that it can be successfully carried on by small 
farmers, thus encouraging the settlement of that class on 
lands now lying fallow but capable under cultivation of 
sustaining a large population. This industry has for many 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 125 

years furnished the main support of large numbers of 
natives in Kona, Hawaii. The coffee from that district is 
celebrated for its fine flavor, and commands a high price in 
Honolulu. 

DIVERSIFIED INDUSTRIES. Thoughtful men in 
Hawaii have for many years agitated the subject of divers- 
ifying the industries of the country. So long as capital 
could be advantageously invested in sugar growing, little 
more came of the discussion than attempts to ascertain 
what productive plants were suited to the climate, and 
what ones could probably be cultivated profitably. Now 
that capital finds less remunerative returns in cane grow- 
ing, it is more inclined to test the merits of other enter- 
prises. This accounts, in part, for th: renewed interest in 
coffee culture. A law recently establishing a Bureau of 
Agriculture and Forestry, provides for free public lectures 
and the distribution of information useful to agriculturists, 
stock-raisers and others ; also the securing from abroad of 
such knowledge, seeds, and plants as may be beneficial to 
the agricultural and commercial interests of the Islands, the 
collection and dissemination of knowledge on textile fibers, 
the utility of island woods, or other products, and to aid 
forest conservation. It also provides for experimental cul- 
tivation for public benefit, the offering of premiums for 
encouragement of new agricultural enterprises, the utiliza- 
tion of waste products, and the eradication of injurious 



i26 CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 



insects and weeds. Thus at various points hopeful ex- 
periments are now being conducted in the cultivation of 
sisal, the chocolate tree, nutmeg, rubber and camphor 
The ramie plant grows luxuriantly. 

Hawaii is without question on the threshold of a new- 
industrial development fraught with most encouraging and 
far-seeing results to the political and social prosperity of 
that land. When the country is no longer dependent on a 
singL staple, and a larger proportion of its people are on 
land of their own, raising profitable crops that can be 
exported to the common advantage, Hawaii will in all 
respects become one of the most favored spots in the 
world. All this is probable and that too within a com- 
paratively short period. 

RECIPROCITY TREATY. In 1876 a treaty between 
Hawaii and the United States was ratified, which admitted 
Hawaiian sugar into United States ports free of duty. The 
motive on the part of the United States was ostensibly 
to strengthen the commercial relations between the two 
countries, but political considerations had weighty influ- 
ence in the United States Senate, both when the treaty 
was originally negotiated and particularly when it was 
renewed seven years later. It was admitted by advocates 
of the treaty that Hawaii received by far the greater com- 
mercial advantage under the operation of this treaty, but 
it was successfully urged that it was of utmost importance 




MANGOES.— The Mangoe is an bast Indian fruit, growing at the Islands in 
such abundance that immense quantities are allowed to deca) everj season. The 
Hawaiian Mangoe has but little of the turpentine flavor o1 the Indian variety, 
is sweet, juicy and fragrent. There are numerous varieties, differing in size, 
coior and fla\ r. 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 129 

to maintain such relations with Hawaii as would pre- 
clude any closer alliance of that country with any foreign 
power. The result has justified the concessions made by 
that treaty, for American influence and sentiment overtop 
everything else in Hawaii. This is true among all classes, 
there being a distinctly favorable sentiment toward the 
United States, and a conviction of the ultimate absorption 
of the Islands by this country, even among those who 
oppose such policy at this time. 

BENEFITS TO THE UNITED STATES. Commer- 
cially the benefits to this country have not been insignifi- 
cant. Thus, the total commerce between Hawaii and the 
United States, in 1891, amounted to $19,002,809. Of this 
sum the imports into the United States were valued at 
$ 1 3,895,597, while the exports to Hawaii amounted to 
only $5,107,212. That is, Hawaii sent to the United States 
$8,788,385 worth more than she received back in trade. 
Of this sum, however, only $912,750 was exported to 
Hawaii in gold, leaving an unaccounted-for balance of 
$7,875,635 as apparent loss to Hawaii in this single year's 
trade. The probability is that much of this can be ac- 
counted for as dividends to American stockholders in Ha- 
waiian plantations, and as borrowed capital repaid, and as 
investments in the United States. The least that can be 
said about it is that, inasmuch as this balance never found 
its way back to Hawaii, it must have remained in the 



CLIMATE. SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 

United States, and this country profited to just that degree 

in its trade with little Hawaii. That the record for 1891 

was not exceptional, may be seen in the fact that there 

similar balance in the trade with Hawaii for the ten 

5 previous to 1891, averaging 5c. 75:2,014 per annum. 
However interesting it may be to speculate on what be- 
came of this large amount, we know it did not go back 
and that it did remain in this country. This must enter 
into any consideration of the benefits received by the 
United States under its Reciprocity Treaty with Hawaii. 
Another less elusive class of benefits which, however, do 
not figure in any table of exports and imports, are such 
facts as these: that the carrying trade is and has been dur- 
ing all the years since the ratification of this treat}*, almost 
altogether in American bottoms ; that the numerous inter- 
island steamers necessitated by the increased production 

: :-: built in the United States ; that the bulk of the 
insurances has been in American companies; and that 

: sums have been spent during all these years by 

•aiian residents in the United States in ways that do 
not appear in custom-housr si 5. The benefits which 

the United States received under this treat}' in 1891, for 
instance, consisted partly in building up an export trade 
with Hawaii, ranking second in the exports from San Fran- 
; and in receding from Hawaii an import trade rank- 
ing first in the imports into San F: , being double 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 131 

the trade from China or Japan, three times that from Great 
Britain, four times that from Central America, and double 
that from Mexico, South America, Australia and the Indies 
combined. Relatively to population, there is no foreign 
country in the world with which America has so large a 
commerce. 

BENEFITS TO HAWAII. Under the operation of the 
treaty of reciprocity between the two countries, the pro- 
duction of sugar increased from 26,072,429 pounds in 1876 
to 2^9,798,462 pounds in 1890, or over 996 per cent. 
During the same period, the production of the second 
great staple, rice, increased from 2,2^9,324 pounds to 10,- 
£79,000 pounds, or 468 per cent. This phenomenal in- 
crease, under the stimulus of the special tariff exemption 
of the treaty, brought large benefits to Hawaii in the 
development of unused land ; the reclamation of wild and 
barren areas ; the erection of costly mills ; the construction 
of inter-island steamers ; the furnishing of profitable em- 
ployment to its people; the increase of its revenue, and 
the consequent improvement of its harbors and roads ; and 
the building of expensive railroads, thus opening up new 
territory that can be utilized for small farming, but which 
was before too inaccessible to induce settlement. 

NOT AN UNMIXED BLESSING. The treaty, how- 
ever, has not proved an unmixed blessing to the Islands. 
It has produced a sort of congestion of capital in a single 



i 3 2 CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 

great industry, thus crippling small industries and d^ 
couraging the opening of new ones. It has directed at- 
tention towards industrial development to the practical 
ignoring of the more vital questions of a permanently 
beneficial immigration and a liberal homestead policy. It 
has made the Islands commercially dependent on the 
United States, a dependence which, in view of existing 
tariff laws, is of questionable advantage to Hawaii. It 
has proved a sort of commercial forcing process, the ben- 
efits of which have largely accrued to the United States, 
while the evils have been wholly borne by Hawaii. It is 
to the overcoming and rectification of these evils that the 
thoughtful men of that country are now directing them- 
selves. There is a keen appreciation of the social prob- 
lems that have grown up with mushroom rapidity, and 
quite as laudable a purpose, and one as likely of accom- 
plishment, within reasonable limits, as is called out in this 
great country by similar problems. 

COMMERCIAL IMPORTANCE. The census of 1890 
shov/s that the exports of Hawaii "are now, and have been 
for some years past, larger in proportion of its population 
than those of any other country in the world, Australia 
standing next on the list. In the last ten years we have, 
with an average population of not more than eighty thou- 
sand, exported produce worth, in round numbers, ninety- 
nine millions of dollars, or an average of nearly one hundred 




NIGHT-BLOOMING CEREUS. Probably there is no tetter place in the world to 
see the night-blooming cereus in all its glorious beauty than Honolulu. At tin- sea- 
son of its blossoming thousands of flowers open in a single uight. Tin' flowers often 
measure twelve inches in diameter, averaging much larger than t ho usual hot-house 
specimens. 



CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 135 

and twenty-five dollars per annum for every man, woman 
and child in this country/' It is not their productiveness, 
however, but their location that gives to the Hawaiian 
Islands their unique commercial importance. " Situated as 
they are, in mid-ocean, in the direct channels of the great 
and growing commerce between the western coast of 
America and New Zealand, Australia, the Indies, China and 
Japan, the islands afford safe as well as most convenient 
harbors, not only for shelter, repairs and equipment, but 
for supplies to all the ships that traverse the Pacific." 

This strategic position of Hawaii is appreciated at its 
true value by the two nations most vitally concerned. 
Thus, the London Times : " The narrow land-locked inlet 
or lagoon named Pearl River Harbor is in itself small in ab- 
solute extent, but it is of inestimable value to any civilized 
nation possessing it and using it for naval purposes." In a 
report to the National Board of Trade in 1883, its specially 
appointed committee said: "Already far-seeing men look 
forward to the day when the commerce of the Pacific 
shall rival that of the Atlantic. With our long stretch of 
coast upon that ocean and its finest harbors in our posses- 
sion, the United States must guard jealously her interests 
there." 

POLITICAL IMPORTANCE. To the United States 
the commercial and political value of Hawaii is of admitted 
importance. The industrial development of those Islands 



136 CLIMATE, SOIL AND PRODUCTIONS. 

has been the product of political considerations which 
compelled the United States to foster its interests there. 
Those political considerations are as pertinent now as they 
ever have been. American statesmen have foreseen the 
ultimate certainty of a closer alliance of Hawaii, and our 
State Department has accordingly, under several adminis- 
trations, definitely instructed its representative to favorably 
receive overtures looking toward annexation. This known 
disposition of the United States to seek closer commercial 
union grounded on political considerations has had fruitage 
in the Americanizing of sentiment in Hawaii, until now 
that community is the only genuinely American one out- 
side our political borders. It has a larger and more intel- 
ligent American population, relatively, than any of our 
territorial acquisitions possessed at the time of their an- 
nexation, from Florida to Alaska. Its civil institutions and 
its political privileges, and its social and industrial organiza- 
tion are more in harmony with our government and insti- 
tutions than those of any territorial acquisition thus far 
made in our history. It is essentially American territory, 
lacking only the formal declaration to make it technically 
what it is in reality, Hawaii, U. S. A. 

"The possession of the Hawaiian Islands by the United 
States would make them a means of defence to our coast, 
and would give us a convenient naval and commercial 
station."— Senator Dolph. 



HONOLULU, 

HONOLULU, THE CAPITAL. What Havana is to 
Cuba, Honolulu is to the rest of Hawaii. Here are con- 
centrated the business and political and social forces that 
control the life and progress of this nation in the sea. 
That Honolulu is wholly dependent on the industrial en- 
terprises throughout the country goes without saying. It 
is not a manufacturing centre, for here is nothing in the 
raw and crude form that can be profitably manufactured. 
There are no metals or minerals or, as yet, fibrous plants 
or food plants whose manufacture is undertaken in this 
unique city. Coal and iron, and hay and grain, and man- 
ufactured goods of all descriptions come from abroad, 
mainly from California. There are iron foundries in Hon- 
olulu, but they are wholly dependent on the agricultural 
necessities of the country, and could not keep running a 
day were it not for the demand thus created for their 
products. The productive wealth of the land is in its 
agricultural operations exclusively. It is peculiarly an agri- 
cultural country, and Honolulu gains its importance solely 
as a distributing centre or depot of supplies. Were there 
not a large agricultural country tributary to Honolulu, it 
would not even have a name to live. 

L87 



1 38 HONOLULU. 

FIRST GLIMPSE OF HONOLULU. This peculiar 
dependence of Honolulu on the country is apparent to tne 
stranger at first glance. Warehouses and lumber yards 
and commercial houses abound, but there is a singular 
absence of mills and factories and productive establish- 
ments. You will find two foundries and a rice mill and 
two planing mills, and your list is complete. If you walk 
along the wharves you will find bags of grain, and boxes 
of shoes, and crates of crockery, and cases of dry goods, 
and machinery of all descriptions, and furniture, and bricks, 
and cement, things which cities ordinarily produce in their 
marketable form, and in every instance you will see by 
their marks that these goods are from abroad. Honolulu 
does not produce any of these. She simply handles them. 
Look again, and the bags of rice, and sugar, and coffee, and 
the bundles of hides, and bunches of bananas, that are 
marked for export, and the only articles of export of any 
considerable value, are none of them products of Honolulu 
industry, but have all come from the strictly agricultural 
sections. You are impressed with Honolulu as a busy 
distributing centre; not as a productive centre, in the sense 
that it independently contributes products for export or 
products that obviate the necessity of importing from 
abroad. 

BIRD'S-EYE VIEW. This impression is enhanced 
as one looks down on the city from the top of Punch 




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HONOLULU. 141 

Bowl an extinct crater immediately back of the central 
portion of Honolulu. A fine roadway, winding about 
the slopes, affords the finest view of Honolulu obtain- 
able. When the summit is reached a scene of sur- 
passing beauty and interest spreads out before you on 
every hand. Back of you lie the hills, bathing their crests 
in clouds, three and four thousand feet above sea level. 
To the west rise the wonderful Waianae Mountains, re- 
splendent in the glories of a tropic sunset. In the low- 
lands, between you and those far-away hills, lie the rice 
fields innumerable, distinct in the distance, adorned with 
a green unsurpassed even by the wider stretches of cane 
fields just beyond the lovely lochs of Pearl River. To 
the east rises grim old Leahi, popularly known as Dia- 
mond Head, the pride of Honolulu, and certainly the 
rarest bit of detached mountain scenery in the Islands. 
Other hills or peaks may be wild and weird and have 
their peculiar attraction for the tourist, but Leahi is like 
the great Kamehameha in the lonely grandeur and dignity 
and at times surpassing beauty of its outlines. With your 
back to the mountains, you look out on the broad Pacific, 
which seems smooth enough to justify its mild cognomen, 
but which on occasion is turbulent beyond description, 
filling Honolulu with the roar of its breakers, and skirting 
the island with a fringe of foam. Below you, so near that 
you can cast a stone on to some of their roofs, lies Hono- 



:-: HONOLULU. 

lulu, immersed in a wealth of foliage, so that streets are 
hidden, and the houses show only a bit of color in the en- 
compassing green of palms and other exotic plants. The 
city lies Bke a bird with outspread wings, its business 
portion answering to the body of the bird, and the : 
dence portion stretching like wings around Punch Bowl 

aids the northeast up the beautiful and historic Nu- 
uanu Valley, and toward the southeast in the :.. :tion 
of the cocoanut-fringed shores of WaikikL Within a 
radius of '.ess than five hundred feet from the corner 
of King and Fort Streets are located the firms through 
whose bocl:s pass at .fist nine-tenths of the business 
transactions of the Islands. This does not mean that the 
capital of the country is controlled by these firms, but 
that it serves the purpose of the country that its business 
should be transacted thus at a common centre r, by 

common consent, the banks and importing houses are 
locate;., where the only improved harbor is situated, and 
the government is admi i, and the whole 

round of commercial and government transactions is con- 
duct ed From Punch Bowl one gets* with the remark- 
able combination of landscape . a < :vid conception of the 

ntially clerical functions of Honolulu as compared with 
the enormously productive record of the outhing country 
on Oahu and the oth is. Honolulu is a necessary 

link in the chain of cause and effect The cou 



HONOLULU. 143 

thoroughly dependent on Honolulu as its best medium 
of communication with the outside world, but it is as a 
medium and not as a producing community that it main- 
tains its primacy in the mercantile and industrial opera- 
tions of the nation. 

HONOLULU FROM THE SEA. As seen from the 
top of Punch Bowl, Honolulu is charming in its beauty. 
It is hardly less so as it appears from the deck of an in- 
coming steamer. Snuggled at the foot of wondrously 
picturesque hills, rising abruptly into a continuous range 
of dark blue background, lapped by the waves of a per- 
petual summer sea, the city, as seen from outside the reef, 
is beautiful in itself and in its setting. Leahi, or Diamond 
Head, seems like some mighty sphinx or lion couchant, 
guarding in grim silence the leisurely approach to an 
earthly paradise. Tne balmy air, and the dark-lying hills, 
and the abundant vegetation, and the emerald green at 
the harbor bar, and the softness and depth of the blue 
skies, and the generous sunshine bathing all the land- 
scape, greet the stranger with a tropic welcome. He 
knows he is in the tropics at last, for the palms wave 
over him, and the air is fragrant with magnolia and plu- 
meria and stephanotis. And yet it is impossible for him 
to be ashore five minutes without realizing that, after 
all, the enginery and propelling power in this wonderful 
land is not tropical but Anglo-Saxon. Wherever there is 



H4 HONOLULU. 

directing energy, or organizing power, or enterprise, or 
action, or application, there the Anglo-Saxon is the moving 
spirit. He is in the church, the school, the counting- 
room ; on the railroad and the steamer ; at the dry-dock 
and the foundry; in the lumberyard, at the mill, on the 
tow-boat He is at the wharf when you land, on 
the street as you pass, at the hotel when you register. 
Nothing goes on successfully without him. He fills your 
teeth, and cuts your hair, and mends your shoes, and 
builds your house, and shoes your horses, and mends 
your coffee-pot, and sells you furniture and medicines, 
and hardware, and fits your clothes, and takes your pic- 
ture, and you rub against him everywhere, at least where 
anything is going on. He wears a summer suit twelve 
months in a year, but rarely looks tropical in any particu- 
lar. There is a seeming incongruity between the luxuriant 
tropic growth of plants and trees, and the presence of 
people from a northern clime who yield with less grace 
to the amenities of tropic costume than do Yankees in 
Havana. 

GENIUS OF THE FOREIGNER. Such is the Anglo- 
Saxon whose home is in this land of sunshine. And 
yet, though he retains to the full his race characteristics, 
and walks or sits beneath the palms and gorgeous flow- 
ering trees as he would beneath the elms and maples 
of his native land, seeming indeed to be a foreigner in the 



HONOLULU. 145 

presence of this unique vegetation, he is yet its author, 
having made Honolulu what it is by his enterprise in in- 
troducing foreign plants and in encouraging their growth. 
Most people do not realize this. They do not know that 
when the white man came, Honolulu was a treeless, 
sandy plain, with a fringe of cocoanut trees along the 
shore. Honolulu, as it is to-day, is the creation of the 
foreigner. It is his handiwork. Great trees that look as 
though they might have had fifty years of growth were 
planted by people who are barely middle-aged. Walk 
into one of the numerous yards where plants and trees 
and vines are growing, as though on their native soil, 
and you will find that every one of them has been im- 
ported within a comparatively recent period. Almost every 
quarter of the subtropical world has been laid under 
tribute. Here is the rubber tree, the banyan, the baobab, 
the litchee, the avocado, the mango, and palms innumer- 
able. Here are also the brilliant and gaudy bougainvillaea, 
the prolific plumeria, the night-blooming cereus, and the 
bright and attractive crotons. We have in this a pleasing 
and truthful illustration of the beneficent transformations 
that the enterprise of foreigners has effected in Hawaii. 
From the days of Vancouver, the foreign residents have 
been tireless in aiding the introduction of ornamental and 
useful plants, and greatly to the advantage of the people 
and the country. The enterprise of foreigners in intro- 



146 HONOLULU. 

ducing new plants, has been very effectually supplemented 
by some of the wealthier Hawaiians, who, it must be con- 
fessed, bear off the palm for attractive and well-kept 
grounds. 

SIZE OF HONOLULU. The city is long and narrow, 
being about three miles long on the seaside and about 
half a mile wide, and extending nearly two miles into 
Nuuanu Valley, on the land side, with an average width of 
about half a mile. The houses are rarely occupied by more 
than a single family, and in general the yards about each 
dwelling are ample. This affords an agreeable roominess 
which accounts for the disparity between the apparently 
extensive area and the comparatively small population 
of the city, the latter being barely twenty-five thousand. 
The streets are broad and ample, except in the older and 
business sections, where, of all places, they should be 
wide, but where, in fact, they are lamentably narrow and 
unsuited to the city's needs. The private residences are 
attractive and are every year being constructed more in 
accordance with the privileges of the climate. The lanai 
or veranda is the distinctive feature in Honolulu house 
construction. It is being gradually evolved into a novel 
room of three sides, broad and airy, and open on one side, 
with a protecting screen that can be lowered as required. 
An afternoon tea on a lanai, open towards one's garden, or 
perchance towards the sea, with orchids and choice ferns 



HONOLULU. 147 

for decorations, and a delicious breeze for inspiration, is 
one of the treats of tropical life. 

PUBLIC BUILDINGS. All the machinery of govern- 
ment, excepting that of the most purely local nature, is 
located at Honolulu. There is no municipal government. 
All authority and legislation and responsible administration 
centres at the capital. The public buildings used for 
government purposes are chiefly the Executive building, 
formerly the Palace ; the Judiciary building, formerly the 
Government building, and the Station-house. These 
buildings are all constructed of cement concrete, and are 
all creditable buildings, the two former being handsome 
structures, with ample and ornamental grounds. The 
Oahu prison belongs to the old order, being built, as was 
customary in early days, of slabs of coral concrete, cut 
for the building from the reef. Many of the buildings in 
the business section are built of brick, as is also the Hon- 
olulu Library building, and that of the Y. M. C. A., as well 
as the large native church called Kaumakapili. The Ma- 
sonic Hall, the Safety Deposit building, the handsome 
Central Union Church, are all built of the Kamehameha 
stone, a hard basaltic lava quarried on the grounds of the 
Kamehameha School, in the construction of whose build- 
ings it was first brought into use. 

PUBLIC WORKS. Honolulu has been dependent 
until the past year on a system of storing surface water 



148 HONOLULU. 

for its water supply. Large reservoirs have been con- 
structed in the Upper Nuuanu Valley, and these have 
proved adequate in the supply of water for fire purposes 
as well as for drinking and irrigation of lawns, until within 
recent years. The success at Ewa plantation in employ- 
ing enormous pumps in sending artesian water into the 
cane fields, has led the government to install a large 
pump and to utilize artesian water for the city supply, and 
with admirable results. The city is lighted by electric 
arc-lights, the electricity being generated by dynamos run 
by turning water from the Nuuanu reservoirs into the 
mains at night. A private corporation furnishes incan- 
descent lighting for stores and residences, and two tele- 
phone companies number between them over njoo sub- 
scribers in a total population of 2^,000. Probably no 
other place in the world enjoys such telephone facilities 
in proportion to its population. Marketing, committee- 
work, gossiping, prescribing for patients, and all manner 
of routine belonging to household and social needs, is 
done by means of the convenient telephone. This, of 
course, has its drawbacks. One does not like to break 
away from the company of friends at the dinner table, 
especially if you happen to be the host, to answer through 
the telephone another friend's question, "What is Miss 
Smith's address in the States ? " Nor is it conducive to 
the fullest enjoyment of that first sound sleep before 




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HONOLULU. 151 

midnight to hear the bell buzz in the next room only to 
remind you that the "Australia " is " off Waimanalo and 
will be in in the morning.' , Sometimes one gets a smile 
even out of a telephone. Once, when a sharp whistling 
of some steamer was heard in the harbor, instead of 
bothering "Central" I pulled down the lever and listened. 
"Central!" "Yes." "What's that whistling?" "Tow- 
boat." "What's she whistling for?" "'Cause she's a 
tow-boat?" Involuntarily I snickered in the transmitter, 
and got a sharp, snappy order, " Put up that lever." But 
it did not go up till I shouted, "Good for you, central, 
I'll call again." 

POPULATION OF HONOLULU. Outside of Hono- 
lulu there is comparatively slight concentration of popula- 
tion at particular points. Over twenty-five per cent, of 
the total population, however, is in the city of Honolulu, 
or according to the census of 1890, 22,907 out of a total 
of 89,990. Of this number, 1 1,165' are natives and half- 
castes, or about 48 per cent. ; 4,795 are Asiatics and the 
remaining 6,947 are Europeans or Americans. The for- 
eign population has grown in numbers since the last 
census was taken, and the census of 1896 will show a 
marked modification of these figures of 1890. It has 
been ascertained that the residences have an average of 
$.05 persons, while counting boarding schools, hotels, 
prisons, etc., there is an average of 5.73 persons to each 



1 52 HONOLULU. 

inhabited building, showing plainly that in Honolulu, at 
least, if nowhere else in the world, there is no over- 
crowding of the population. 

PORTUGUESE COLONY. The slopes of Punch Bowl 
are being dotted with snug cottages built by the thrifty 
Portuguese. Every foot of land about them is carefully 
cultivated, and here are fig-trees, and small vineyards, and 
bright garden spots that tell the story of New Hawaii. In 
upper Nuuanu Valley, land that a few years ago was 
fallow, under the vigorous administration of Hon. L. A. 
Thurston, then Minister of Interior, and now Hawaiian 
Minister at Washington, was divided up into homesteads, 
and now is owned by enterprising Portuguese, who are 
gradually changing the face of the country. Their cosy 
homes and cultivated acres are a prophecy of what an 
industrious agricultural people are bound to accomplish 
within a few years. A horseback ride up the well-watered 
and sheltered Kalihi Valley will convince the most scepti- 
cal of the wonderful transformation the whole country is 
to undergo under the magic touch of the genuine farmer 
from abroad. Here are untold acres of taro under Chinese 
cultivation, and great orchards of bananas under Portu- 
guese cultivation. These bananas are exported to San 
Francisco, and banana farming is a profitable industry. 

PLEASURE RESORTS. The ubiquitous hack-man 
will show you a good deal of Honolulu in an afternoon 



HONOLULU. 153 

and keep you agog with his yarns and confidential infor- 
mation. He will take you to Waikiki for a bath in the 
surf, or to the famous Pali, where the view of ocean and 
of verdant plains below you, dotted with cane and rice 
fields, is an enchanting one. He will drive you into the 
Kamehameha School grounds, and graciously wait, at his 
regular price per hour, while you visit the Museum, or stroll 
through the workshops, or peek at the elegant academic 
building known as Bishop Hall. The Museum was erected 
by Hon. C. R. Bishop as a memorial of his wife, Princess 
Pauahi, who endowed these schools. A forenoon in this 
building, taken in conjunction with a visit to the class- 
rooms and workshops of this excellent institution, will fur- 
nish the stranger, within the smallest compass, a glimpse 
into the past of the Hawaiian race and a forecast of its 
future so far as human agencies and a wise training can 
provide for and secure that future. 

At the other end of town your driver will take you 
into the grounds of Oahu College, an historic institution, 
from which have gone forth the men who now control 
the affairs of Hawaii. This is a school for foreign chil- 
dren, and maintains a record of excellence, young men 
from it entering the best of American colleges with honor- 
able distinction. 

After all, however, the stranger can see to better 
advantage what is to be seen and enjoyed through the 



154 HONOLULU. 

hospitality of Honolulu people who are famous for their 
friendliness towards visitors to the Islands. One does not 
expect to see here what is to be met with in larger and 
older countries. Much of the attractiveness of Honolulu 
consists in just being there, realizing with every breath 
that it is a land of bloom, and that no weather indications, 
much less any weather itself, can possibly invade your 
delightsome retreat. You do not need quite to voice the 
sentiment : — 

"A horse ! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!" 

for you can avail yourself of the street cars, — beg par- 
don ! I should say " the tram-way," for in all this Ameri- 
canized city there is but one thing that is English to the 
very core, and that is the street railway system. No one 
should forego the novel experience of a ride in a Hon- 
olulu "tram." The cars are made in the United States, 
good, honest American cars, but the English manager 
changes their name at the Custom-house after paying 
duties and, thereafter, they are "trams" to the close of 
their checkered career. 

With a good horse, however, one can go and come as 
he pleases, without being obliged to hold a wilted ticket 
until he reaches his destination; and he can get at the 
things that are really worth seeing, as a run into the 
country where comical Chinamen are at work in the rice 
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HONOLULU. 1 57 

are being worked, or up on the hills where land and sea 
alike are spread to view. To see the people as they live 
and work is after all the most fascinating attraction to the 
stranger, and in the company of a resident, one will find 
his days full of profitable sight-seeing at very little, if any, 
personal inconvenience. 

CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS. Three royal person- 
ages have left memorials to their generosity and humani- 
tarian instincts that will always merit honorable mention. 
The rare foresight and commendable wisdom of Princess 
Pauahi in providing for the industrial training of Hawaiian 
youth has already been referred to. Lunalilo, with affec- 
tionate regard for his people, provided a home for indigent 
Hawaiians, and a beautiful building that bears his name 
is one of the most attractive spots in Honolulu. The 
grounds were tastefully laid out, largely under the direc- 
tion of Hon. S. B. Dole, President of the Provisional 
Government, and are an honor to his judgment and good 
taste. Queen Emma Hospital was established and en- 
dowed by Queen Emma, the widow of Kamehameha IV. 
It is open to all nationalities, Hawaiians having treatment 
free, and is located centrally, its fine grounds affording 
delight and health of spirit to thousands who never need 
other treatment than the shade of its remarkable grove of 
royal and date palms. The Sailor's Home is now in 
process of construction and is a credit to the munificence 



158 HONOLULU. 

of Honolulu citizens, who thus provide a substantial 
and commodious building for Jack's wholesome enter- 
tainment while on shore. Other minor institutions and 
organizations provide suitably and effectively for all those 
charitable demands made on the benevolent by the exi- 
gencies of city life. There is a sense in which it is entirely 
true to say that there is no want in Honolulu life that is 
not fittingly supplied, and the record will compare favor- 
ably with that of any continental city in any land. 

ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE. The organization 
of the judiciary is not unlike that of the United States. 
Thus there are district courts at convenient locations 
throughout the group, circuit courts for each of the larger 
islands, and a supreme court, with final powers as a court 
of last resort. The police system is well organized and 
reasonably efficient considering the sparsely settled condi- 
tion of many districts, and the difficulties attending detec- 
tion among the roving classes who furnish the largest 
quota of criminals, viz., the Chinese plantation laborers, 
who are always on the road in considerable numbers 
shifting from one plantation to another. Opium smuggling 
is carried on by the wholesale, and the police force has not 
proved itself efficient in detecting it or in thwarting it. 
Officials are easily corrupted by the bribes that in continu- 
ousness and regularity of payment come to wear all the 
semblance of an additional salary. What is needed is a 



HONOLULU. 159 

patrol steamer to guard the coast, and to seize vessels of 
suspicious character. Such vessels have been repeatedly 
seen and reported, and a few weeks afterwards opium has 
been sold on the sly at a figure low enough to show that 
there was plenty of the drug at hand. 

Two peculiarities of the jury system are worthy of 
note, viz., the majority verdict, and the mixed jury. The 
latter is for cases between natives and foreigners, in which 
the jury is composed one-half of natives, and one-half of 
foreigners. Natives are tried before native juries, and 
foreigners before foreign juries. This arrangement, while 
evincing an element of fairness, operates to keep alive race 
sensitiveness and should be done away with. This had 
noteworthy illustration in the trial of two men connected 
with the insurrection of 1889. The white man, who was 
a subordinate, and not a combatant in the conflict, was 
found guilty and sentenced to prison. The native leader, 
though guilty by his own statements, was released by the 
court because the native jury declared him not guilty. 

The majority verdict is considered an aid to justice. A 
verdict of nine or more constitutes a true verdict. The 
corruption of a single juror is thus prevented from thwart- 
ing the ends of justice. A laughable incident occurred in 
the case of a native jury in Kau, on one occasion, who, on 
polling their decision, found that it was a unanimous one 
for conviction. Having been instructed that a vote of 



160 HONOLULU. 

nine to three would be sufficient for conviction or acquit- 
tal, they decided that three of the jury must change their 
decision, and vote for acquittal, and thus the verdict de- 
clared by the foreman when the jury came into court a 
little later, was nine to three for conviction. 

EDUCATION. The public schools are under the 
direction of a Board of Education, and are creditable both 
as to attendance of pupils and the character of the build- 
ings. The latter have been much improved during recent 
years, and the instruction has been changed from the Ha- 
waiian language to the English in all but a few out-of- 
the-way schools. The attendance in both public and 
private schools, in 1890, was 10,006. Of this number 7172 
were natives and half-castes and 2491 Europeans and 
Americans. This is a large attendance in a total popula- 
tion of 12,099, under fifteen years of age. Especially is 
this so when it is known that there is strong pressure 
among some nationalities to encourage child-labor and 
thus increase the earnings of the family. 

TAXATION. The rate of taxation, one per cent., is 
low and the burden of taxation is light. It is unevenly 
distributed, however, personal taxes being comparatively 
high, while the sugar industry does not share its part of 
the burden. The system of taxation is capable of im- 
provement in the interest of the poorer classes. There is 
now an exemption from taxation of property of $300 




RESIDENCE OF C. R. BISHOP. The residence of the wealthy banker, the Hon. 
Charles R. Bishop, is the most costly in the city of Honolulu. The house was built 
by the Princess Ruth, sister of Kamehameha V., but a short time before her death. 
Ser estate was bequeathed to her niece, Mrs. C. R. Bishop. The interior is beautiful: .- 
decorated with many of the most rare varieties of the native woods. 



1 



HONOLULU. 1 6 



O 



valuation and less, but in many instances a given indi- 
vidual's personal taxes are larger than his property tax. 
Again, the holding of land in large estates deprives the 
government of a considerable revenue that would come 
from property taxes were these large estates divided and 
improved. It has been estimated that the revenues could 
be thus increased 50 per cent. Again, the cost of collec- 
tion is larger than it should be, even taking into consider- 
ation all the attendant difficulties. These are matters, 
however, that are receiving thoughtful consideration, and 
Hawaii is not in these particulars unlike larger communi- 
ties elsewhere where the problems of taxation are by no 
means settled. Indeed, Hawaii has made commendable 
progress, her present system securing an efficient and in- 
telligent administration of this department of the govern- 
ment, quite in contrast with the early days when women 
and children were subject to the poll tax at half rates 
(without the privilege of voting, of course) and when the 
rate fixed on a large farm was a one-fathom hog, and on 
a small one a pig. 

HARBOR OF HONOLULU. There are other good 
harbors in the group, but Honolulu harbor is the only 
one on which much money has been spent. It has been 
dredged to a depth of forty feet and the channel through 
the reef to a depth of thirty feet, and the largest vessels 
afloat in the Pacific can now be docked. An excellent 



1 64 HONOLULU. 

marine railway is kept busily employed, large ships being 
run up for much needed repairs, among them at one time 
being some of the United States wooden gunboats. The 
harbor during the sugar season, from March to July, is a 
busy scene. Inter-island steamers and sailing vessels 
bring in at that time thousands of bags of sugar each 
day, and these are in turn placed on board vessels bound to 
San Francisco. The steamship Eton, in 1891, took away 
4292^ tons, being the largest sugar cargo that ever left 
the port of Honolulu. The importance of this carrying 
trade can be understood in part by the amount of sugar 
alone exported in 1891, amounting to 262,910,279 pounds. 
It can be better understood by the figures given in the 
report of the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce for 
the year 1891, which show that the trade of that port 
alone with the Islands, mainly with Honolulu, reached the 
remarkable total of $17,373,918. Under a progressive and 
stable administration of public affairs, Honolulu harbor 
will acquire even larger facilities for handling the trade 
and providing for the commerce that is certain to seek 
its shores. 

Honolulu is an American roadstead, in that nine-tenths 
of the vessels entering the port and doing the carrying 
trade of the Islands float the American flag. Nowhere 
else do the ships of our White Squadron seem more at 
home, or fall more naturally into the scene as part of 



HONOLULU. 165 

nature's contribution than in the quiet haven of Honolulu. 
The strains of the flag-ship band swelling out through 
the cocoanut groves in the summer evening air make the 
resident American almost realize that he is in his own land 
till, sharp and clear in the night air, there comes the dismal 
wail from the stricken household of one more Kanaka 
gone to his long home. 

STREET SCENES. There are times when Honolulu 
seems to fairly blossom out in picturesque costumes. The 
gay colors worn by the native horsewomen on holiday 
occasions have already been spoken of. On Chinese 
New Year's, the celestials of the better class wear as many 
colors as adorn a haberdasher's show-window. Think of 
a man with pea-green cloth shoes, yellow or blue bags for 
trousers, a lavender garment, a sort of cross between a 
coat and a shirt, with wide-spreading sleeves three-quar- 
ters of a yard across at the wrists, a jaunty brown cap 
with long red tassels, and a dainty fan, walking leisurely 
through the streets, bowing to scores of others dressed in 
as many combinations of color as himself. The Japanese 
are quite unlike the Chinese in that they clothe their 
dumpy little bodies almost uniformly in European costume. 
This is not the case when they first arrive in the country, 
for they then exhibit the oddest combinations of dress 
known to man. The Japanese women wear lengths of 
cloth swaddled about their forms regardless of the usual 



1 66 HONOLULU. 

conventionalities of street costume. The Chinaman be- 
lieves in flowing and liberal trousers, but the Japanese 
patronizes pantaloons of the close-reefed variety, and the 
general appearance of his nether extremities is remarkably 
suggestive of Palmer Coxe's Brownies. For a crude, out- 
landish lot of mortals, commend me to a motley group of 
Asiatics just released from quarantine, and riding into town 
with their mats, and queer baskets, and all the other para- 
phernalia of coolie comfort. Hawaii is a Paradise indeed 
for these subjects of the Flowery Kingdom, for here they 
have comforts and freedom and an outlook in life that 
never dawns on the sodden mass of humanity from 
which they come. 

One custom that is novel is the love of the Hawaiian 
for adornment. Above all things, a lei or wreath is valued 
as a thing of beauty and a joy forever. Rarely will you 
find a young Hawaiian, whether man or woman, who 
does not have a hat adorned with a lei of bright scarlet or 
yellow or white flowers, or one made with the ends of 
peacock feathers, or of dainty sea-shells deftly strung 
together, or of fragrant seeds. 

Whatever you buy, whether fruit, or a cane of native 
woods, or a set of exquisite tree-shells, the jewels of 
Hawaiian woodlands, you can pay for it in American 
money, gold or silver or paper. The islands have silver 
money of their own, coined at the San Francisco mint, 



HONOLULU. 167 

and of the same intrinsic value as United States silver coin, 
and at first glance it closely resembles such coin, so that 
one hardly realizes in using it that he is not handling 
American money. 

At night, the customary band concert calls together a 
crowd of all ages and nationalities. The unique feature is 
the singing by Hawaiian male voices. The native is a 
natural lover of music, and perhaps nothing is more at- 
tractive to foreigners than the plaintive songs that inevita- 
bly suggest the mournful phase of Hawaiian life, while 
they fascinate with their melody. One thinks more than 
once, on such occasions, of the ancient fable of the 
melody of the dying swan. 

THE GARDEN ISLE. Kauai has well been called 
"The Garden Island/' This is due to its land structure, 
contributing as it does to its delightful climate and its ad- 
vantages for cultivation. Thus, the island is nearly circular, 
with its highlands, reaching an elevation at points of 
jooo feet, in the centre, and its arable lands near the sea. 
The highlands are well wooded, and Kauai is perhaps the 
best watered island in the group, numerous streams com- 
ing down from the interior to the lower lands below. 
Although Kauai contains only 390 square miles, or less 
than one-fifteenth of the area of the four most productive 
islands, viz., Hawaii, Maui, Oahu and Kauai, it furnishes 
one-sixth of the total acreage of cane grown on these 



1 68 HONOLULU. 

four islands, being nearly as much as the cane acreage 
of Maui, and three times that of Oahu, each of which 
islands is twice the size of Kauai. Moreover, Kauai fur- 
nishes one-third of the total acreage under rice cultiva- 
tion on these four islands, producing a crop five times 
as large as that of the islands of Maui and Hawaii com- 
bined. 

THE LEPER COLONY. Across the channel from 
Oahu toward the southeast, a distance of twenty-three 
miles, is Molokai, the island most widely known as the 
place where the lepers are segregated. Kalawao is a 
valley walled in by high precipices, open seawards, but 
accessible to the landward side only by a difficult trail 
down the bluff. It is in this valley that the leper colony 
is located. For about a quarter of a century a policy of 
segregation, more or less strictly enforced, according to 
circumstances, has built up in this valley a colony that 
reflects credit on the wisdom, generosity and humanita- 
rian instincts of the Hawaiian nation. Here are all the 
worst cases, in fact all in the land who are known to 
have the disease in such form as to endanger others. 
Government physicians, over twenty in number, widely 
scattered throughout the group, as one of their duties, 
examine suspects, keeping doubtful cases under monthly 
surveillance, and sending pronounced cases to the receiving 
station at Honolulu, where a similar sifting process goes 






HONOLULU. 169 

on, the doubtful cases, or those not pronounced, being 
detained at the station for treatment, and the decided 
cases, after an examination by a board of five physicians, 
being sent to the Kalawao colony. 

LIBERAL TREATMENT OF LEPERS. This 
settlement is sustained by a government appropriation of 
$117,000 per annum, food, clothing, lodging, and medical 
attendance being furnished at government expense. There 
were 1 1 1 5* lepers in the colony in 1892, with an average of 
about three persons to a house. In all there are 430 
buildings owned by the Board of Health, or in some 
cases by lepers themselves, and by benevolent organiza- 
tions. There are six churches, three houses belonging 
to the Catholic mission, a Boy's Home, the Bishop Home 
for unprotected women and girls, a store and houses for 
the superintendent and physician. The physician in 
charge in 1892, in his report, stated that he could "at 
any time get twenty or twenty-five kokuas (men not 
leprous, living at the settlement) to submit to inoculation 
with the view of contracting the disease, to the end that 
they might be endowed with the privileges and supplied 
with the rations of the regular leper." Be this as it may, 
it is indisputable that the patients, or rather inhabitants of 
this colony, are contented with their surroundings, being, 
many of them, better off in this world's goods than before 
they went there. The death-rate is comparatively low, 



i;o HONOLULU. 

being, in 1892, 24.^8 per cent. Formerly the disease made 
more rapid strides among those afflicted with it than is 
the case at present. 

The disease is believed to be under control elsewhere, 
the large island of Hawaii, in 1892, being reported free 
of lepers. The systematic segregation of recent years has 
brought this about. There are many people, however, 
who are connected by blood relationship with lepers, liv- 
ing or dead, who through heredity or contagion may have 
the seeds of the disease in their system, and, therefore, 
medical supervision of all suspects must continue as in 
the past. 

THE VALLEY OF DEATH. Much has been written 
about Kalawao that has ignored the noble spirit shown by 
this little nation in its care of these unfortunates. Hawaii 
never has needed to import from abroad suitable sympathy 
and a kindly regard for the comfort of its lepers. Prob- 
ably no nation has ever borne a heavier burden or done it 
so sympathetically and generously. Its policy of segrega- 
tion has not been a policy of ostracism, but a wise seclu- 
sion of its afflicted people for their own benefit and 
comfort, and for the safety of the rest. Honolulu people 
honor themselves by their frequent contributions to the 
comfort of these Kalawao unfortunates, in addition to the 
generous provision made by the Board of Health. 

The sun rises and sets on Kalawao, and the wholesome 










RESIDENCE OF MR. WATERHOUSE. The grounds surrounding this residence 
ore among the most beautiful in the city. Every odd variety of plant life that can 
be grown in the tropics is found here. A large artificial pond is covered with hundreds 
of pink lotus blossoms, mingled with the white and bluelillies BO well known in 
noi t hern climes. 



HONOLULU. 173 

breath of the ocean air floods that broad valley, and the 
earth all about responds with verdure, and the great hills 
rise grim and dark above, but an awful scourge is on the 
people, and it is the valley of death. "Morituri salutamus" 
might well be the handwriting along those giant cliffs. 
As we sail away with eye moistened and heart heavy, 
we catch the strains of a band whose musicians are all 
lepers. Why should not they have their pleasant pas- 
times as well as we ? We are all dying 1 

OFF TO WINDWARD. To know these strange and 
beautiful islands one must take the trip to windward, and 
see at least the two largest islands, Maui and Hawaii. Land- 
ing from the steamer at Maalaea Bay, Maui, one can take the 
stage to Wailuku, the trains to Kahului, and the saddle to 
Makawao, reaching thus a point from which can be seen 
the largest area of tillable land in the group. Here are 
tens of thousands of acres of cane-land, sweeping from 
your feet down the long slope, out across the great plains, 
and banking the hills beyond with green. Behind you is 
the mighty but silent Haleakala, the House of the Sun, 
rising steadily up into the clouds to an elevation of 10,000 
feet, while across the isthmus rise the mystic, gruesome 
hills of West Maui, a massive phalanx of peaks, jooo and 
6000 feet above sea-level. From this island, in the stir- 
ring days of the gold excitement in California, in 1849, 
potatoes and flour were exported, commanding fancy 



i 74 HONOLULU. 

prices in the San Francisco market. All things considered, 
the famous Iao Valley, back of Wailuku, probably pre- 
sents the finest bit of scenery, united with startling 
effects, to be seen anywhere on the islands. Enthusiasts 
do not hesitate to compare it favorably with the far-famed 
Yosemite. Where these waving fields of cane now 
stretch, the finest bit of Hawaiian valor was shown in the 
fatal " charge of the Alapa," one hundred years ago. The 
bloodiest conflict in Hawaiian annals was fought in the 
presence of the surpassing beauties of this valley of Iao. 
LAHAINA AND THE WHALE TRADE. Once the 
centre of a busy trade and the favorite resort of Hawaiian 
kings, Lahaina is now little more than a hamlet, with 
dumb signs only, in buildings going to decay, of its former 
busy scenes. At this now sleepy port, at a single time, 
there rode at anchor, along in the fifties, as many as sixty 
or more whalers, bringing hither their oil for reshipment, 
and fitting out with new supplies for another cruise. The 
whaling trade was the principal source of income to the 
Islands up to the time of the civil war in the United States. 
Confederate privateers made such havoc among the 
vessels employed in this industry, as to greatly restrict it. 
This was a severe blow to the Islands, so largely depend- 
ent on this trade. Thus in 18^9, there were £49 whalers 
entered at Hawaiian ports, which number was reduced to 
102 in 1869, ten years later. Lahaina suffered more than 



HONOLULU. 175 

any other port as the result of this lost trade. We can 
imagine much from the presence of those whale-ships at 
Lahaina that needs not to be written. There are chapters, 
dark and shameful, of the conduct of other seamen at this 
historic spot, that have gone down in history. We would 
not bring them back, those days of lustful cruelty. The 
record has been made and is before the great Judge. One 
must think of these things though, as he walks through 
indolent, drowsy Lahaina, whose trade has gone and her 
people too. We recall the lines of Charles Warren Stod- 
dard as we turn our faces seaward again, leaving far 
Dehind the foaming reef, and cocoanut groves of Lahaina, 
and the mountain masses of Maui, 

*• Where the peaks shoulder 
The clouds like a yoke ; 
Where the dear Isle 
Has a charm to beguile 
As she rests in the lap 
Of the seas that enfold her." 

WINDWARD HAWAII. What can surpass a trip 
along the Hamakua and Hi!o coast! It is a constant 
panorama of gorge and table-land; of darksome valleys 
whose sides rise into the clouds; of great bluffs down 
whose precipitous sides scores of streams are pouring in 
cascades into the sea; of rolling fields of cane; of ex- 
pensive mills, and long lines of flumes, and cosy hamlets 
and churches on the hilltops, and school-houses near by; 



1 76 HONOLULU. 

of extensive, unbroken forests; of distant lava-flows 
shimmering in the sunlight ; of mighty mountains raising 
their heads 14,000 feet into the sky and wearing man- 
tels of snow that glisten like fields of solid silver; and 
last of all, at the mouth of the noisy Wailuku, rising 
gently from its beach of black sand, of Hilo, the beau- 
tiful town by the sea. 

BEAUTIFUL HILO. The beauty of Honolulu is that 
which comes from the artificer's hands. The beauty of 
Hilo is that of nature, prodigal in its gifts and transcending 
all that art of man can compass. Everything at Hilo is 
luxuriant, even to the famous Hilo grass and the very 
weeds themselves. Every little nook where nothing else 
will grow is stuffed with ferns lovely in color and shape. 
Every hill-side is banked with solid masses of ferns and 
other beautiful plants. On either side of the streets are 
merry streams bubbling with delight as they hurry to the 
sea. Things grow so fast that sods forming in the bottom 
of these streams choke the ditches several times a year. 
Tall, stately banana trees are in their glory, and the roses 
and lilies bloom the year around. The forests about Hilo 
are of entrancing beauty. Mammoth bird's nest ferns 
grow in the crotches of great trees, gigantic vines trail 
across from branch to branch, and ferns in endless variety 
cover rock and trunk and bend and sway about you on 
every hand. Such delicate tracery and wealth of foliage as 



HONOLULU. 179 

here abound ! It is a paradise for the botanist and the lover 
of nature. All this is due to the abundant rains that make 
Hilo a veritable garden of delight. Think of an annual 
rainfall of one hundred and fifty-five inches or one inch 
less than thirteen feet ! Stand three good-sized boys, one 
above another, and the upper boy's eyes could not see 
above the surface of such a mass of water. And yet Hilo 
is healthful, and a delightful place to live in. It is here 
that Mauna Kea bursts out in the morning light in all the 
glory of his rugged outlines. It is hither that the pilgrims 
come to visit Kilauea, for Hilo is the gate-way to a not 
distant inferno that men must reach by passing first 
through Paradise. 

COCOANUT ISLAND. Mokuola or Cocoanut Island, 
just across the bay from Hilo, is a gem of beauty. Its 
clustered cocoanut trees make a grove underneath which 
famous picnics are held. The rough-leaved pandanus 
trees and the black lava rocks on one side are in striking 
contrast with the soft manienie grass and the light green 
water of the cosy cove and the sandy white beach, where 
the children make their castles in the sand. The native 
word, Mokuola, means island of life or health, and was 
given to this beautiful spot because of a certain rock 
under water in the cove which possessed life or health- 
giving properties. Any one who was ill, so the story 
goes, by swimming under water three times around this 



180 HONOLULU. 

rock would be healed of his sickness. Natives come to 
this spot even now to gain exemption from various 
diseases. 

This island was the scene of a legendary exploit in 
which Kalanikupule, the last king of Oahu, figures in a 
more heroic role than in that last fatal encounter at Nuuanu 
Pali. It seems that he was enamored of a beautiful prin- 
cess, the reputed daughter of Kamehameha, who guarded 
her with jealous eye and spurned the lover's suit. Learning 
that Kamehameha was staying at Mokuola with his daugh- 
ter and some of his bravest chiefs, Kulanikupule sailed 
with a few chosen warriors from Oahu, stealing by night 
aiong the Hamakua and Hilo coast in his war-canoe, and 
arriving at Mokuola when Kamehameha and his warriors 
were soundly sleeping. Stepping lightly ashore and pick- 
ing his way among the prostrate forms, he reached the 
slumbering princess, raised her to his arms, steathily re- 
treated, gained his canoe and started proudly on his home- 
ward trip, arriving safely at Oahu, while Kamehameha 
chagrined and angry chafed and fumed at the audacity 
and triumph of his foe. 

The romance of Mokuola still survives. The waters 
of Hilo Bay still part before the prows of skiffs, and 
peals of laughter and song are wafted from the magic 
shores across the moonlit waves. Love still treads tne 
bleaching sands, a willing captive now. 



VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 

VOLCANIC ORIGIN. The Hawaiian Islands are of 
volcanic origin. The coral reefs that everywhere abound 
have been raised on a substratum of lava, and are recent 
as compared with the general structure of the group. 
The islands are volcanic peaks and ridges that have been 
pushed up above the surrounding seas by the profound 
action of the interior forces of the earth. It must not be 
supposed, however, that this action has been a violent 
perpendicular thrust upward over a very limited locality, 
for the mountains continue to slope at about the same 
angle under the sea and for great distances on every side, 
so that the islands are really the crests of an extensive 
elevation, estimated to cover an area of about 2000 miles 
in one direction by i^o or 200 miles in the other. The 
process has been a gradual one of up-building probably, 
by means of which the sea has been receding as the land 
has steadily risen. Some idea of the mighty forces that 
have been at work beneath the sea and above it can be 
gained by considering the enormous mass of material now 
above the sea-level. Thus, the bulk of the island of 
Hawaii, the largest of the group, has been estimated by 
the Hawaiian Surveyor General as containing 2600 cubic 

181 



[82 VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 

e :: '.ivj. . r :t. -v - : 

England at jo,oc>: square miles, mass of volcanic 

matter would cover that entire country to a depth of 2*74 

:"£•=■:. We :~: 5: remerr.be were:. : 

5 e -level is only a fraction of the amount that sweeps 

down below t reds n iles on eveiy sida 

FISS T J?ES IN EA?7H"S C?V5T. The rer.e: 
:er:ei f-r:ry :: v:h\ir.:: :;. ; r::;rri5 :~ f~e issurr.p- 
tion that the earth's interior is in a molten condition, and 

"jr.11 the rn:-l:en ir.ass f~i5 :ufe;s 

r. ::.z eirs.'s :rus:. The Hr.-;::;r. h : :s h.ive re-er: 



. : ■ . : : series 


of such fissures which are still 


:re~. :he rr.rher. :urrer. 


is 5: ... : ".:■ .:.. ~_ ver.t :: ivhuei ir.d 


V*:>:ur.v£-:'.ve: :r. the 1: 


dand of Hawaii What the forces 


hive :::: : 


■ : littcei the fissures : es 


to be matter of debate 


. The u: 5 i: r.:: _irre-e. 


e :: the threes 


that sustain this mighty upheaval 


that has brought these 


remarkable islands to the surface 


and pushed their lofties 


: rru-is Ir.t: the shy h~:st thre-e 


miles above the level ol 


: the se.t. V.'e s: 


the ocean bed 


ided and that the land has risen. 


Some have advocafl 


he theory that the subsidence of 


the sea bottom is due 


to the withdrawal of the molten 



mass that supported it This theory makes the volcanic 
action the cause of the subsidence of the ocean bed. 
Others advocate the theory that the pressure that bears 




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VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 185 

down on the earth's crust squeezes the molten matter up 
tnrough the fissures previously formed, and that thus the 
suosiderice or the ocean oed becomes the cause of vol- 
canic action as witnessed above the sea-level. A homely 
illustration is at hand. Thr ugh a crack in an orange the 
juice can be suck- d, causing the sides to sink in, thus 
illustrating the first theory ; or, the juice can be squirted 
out by squeezing, thus producing the same result, and 
illustrating the second theory. There is an economy of 
force in nature, however, just as there is in a boy, and as 
the customary boy would both squeeze and suck, it is 
altogether likely that the two phenomena of upheaval 
and subsidence are mutually dependent ifl the work of 
deepening the sea and of raising the land up into the 
sunshine. 

DEPTH OF SURROUNDING SEA. On approaching 
the Islands one is impressed at the abrupt ascent of the 
land. Steep mountains seem to rise out of the ocean into 
the very clouds with hardly a change in the abruptness of 
the ascent. But this same abruptness continues the other 
way down into the sea. Thus the soundings of the 
cable survey between the California coast and the Islands, 
show that all along the eastern coast line of the group 
there is a great depression containing the deepest water 
between the two countries. The mountains run up into 
the clouds to an altitude of three miles, while they sink 



1 86 VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 

down into this enormous depression to a depth of three 
and a halt miles only four miles from the shore. Wnat a 
mountain Mauna Loa would be could it stand on some 
continental area, instead of being shouldered up by the 
bed of the ocean ! Here is an altitude of over six miles 
from base to crest, and the mountain itself is a very fur- 
nace of fury and molten madness. One easily comes to 
respect these mighty masses of basalt whether looking up 
to the clouds or peering vainly down into the prophetic 
blue of the deep seas all around these Islands. 

ARTESIAN BORINGS. From quite another source 
we get a vivid impression of the remarkable changes that 
have gone on in the rearing of these Islands to the light of 
day, as well as in their subsequent subsidence. A great 
many artesian wells have been sunk during recent years, 
and the borings h ve brought to light the testimony of the 
rocks, both as to the age of the group and the process of 
their building up. The following record is from a boring 
near Honolulu and close to the seashore : — 

Gravel and beach sand, 50 ft. Soft rock, like soapstone, 20 ft. 

Volcanic tufa, .... 270 " Brown clay, with broken 

Hard white coral, like coral, no" 

marble, without break, 505 " Hard blue lava, . . . 45 " 

Dark brown clay, . . . 75 " Black clay, ic " 

Washed gravel, . . . 25 " Red pipe clay, .... 18 

Very red clay, . . . . 59 " Porous lava rock, . . 249 
Soft white corai. . . . 28 " i$Ctf 



(t 



» ♦ 



VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 187 

The significant fact in these figures is that the lowest 
substratum yet reached in artesian boring is lava rock. 
Another fact is the great depth of coral, nearly one-tenth 
of a mile in thickness. Another is the recurrence of lava 
and of coral, showing that the land has been built up by 
successive outpourings of lava, and that during intermis- 
sions of volcanic action coral insects have reared their 
monuments of industry unmolested. These artesian bor- 
ings reveal a great age for the mere surface of the islands. 
What, then, must be the antiquity of the foundations on 
which rests all this mountain structure that bathes its 
forehead in the clouds! 

SUBSIDENCE AND UPHEAVAL. The artesian bor- 
ings unmistakably point to a remarkable subsidence. In 
one well, at a depth of two hundred and forty-five feet, 
carbonized wood was found under a bed of coral one 
hundred and fifty feet in thickness. The testimony of 
artesian borings is uniform in attesting to a general sub- 
sidence on the Island of Oahu especially. Along the 
coast of Puna, Hawaii, the sea now rolls in great breakers 
over what was dry land as late as the year 1868. Coco- 
anut trees that were once a refreshment to foot-sore 
travelers now stand out in the sea the land and all on 
it having thus sunk bodily beneath the waves. This was 
a local subsidence, and there are examples in the same 
rerior? showing locaJ upheavals. The best example of 



:SS VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS 

rer.e z .v:,'. is :r. Dihu, -.vhere re ; ee.5 r.i: were 

once under water are now covered with soil and verdure. 
A large part of Honolulu is built on a coral foundation 

: ■;: .ir.ierlies "ir.z .::\: sir.i ir.z s:... A r.:i 

example of upheaval is the remnant of a coral reef that 
ires :: :- \ \5 :: : e Mour.uir.5 at 

an elevation of eighty feet above see-'.eveL These fads 

:e ..5 ::.:.: : :e er :~: _.s t.iss ::~r : 
r.ese ls\2i :s ressess :s..r:.yi:z, ir.i zr.y. -j-.ese 
t:?.s :: sursiier.ce ir.i urheivjL ire r.e esr: irrr.s :f 
this imprisoned r-eir.g. kings he must have to 

: ::. .;:;■ :er.r-rlf5 :r. j. single ir.srinnor. ! 

RELATIVE AGE OF ISLANDS. Tr.e northern 
■ ;'.5 : t - ;.t : " " r.e 5 : . : :e : ':.;:".: :.::.." :.; 

is ex:er: H :he rr.:s: s:u:her. 

:: :.\z gr:ur. Tr.r ;.; .~_ : ... :: v:':jt.:: er.erry se 
have been in the same direction in the history of the 

islir.is, '.'- 
_ r::r: :er:h :: s::'. ; :r :. :'e.ve: s:^t~.s :: Iivjl :.:.-.s. 
I".:; . - j. 1 : :' su'rsiier :e :ei :;v 

:. :./-f _ ei.er jL_:e ::: 
Oahu and Kauai than for Hawaii. It is not improbable. 

: : : H ■._-.- . \ 

fore the craters of Oahu lost their activity. As Green has 
suggested in his " Vest^es of the Molten Globe." a depres- 
sion of the island of Hawaii 6.000 feet would divL 



VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS 189 

into four separate islands, marked by four peaks, — Kohala, 
Hualalai, Mauna Kea, and Mauna Loa. Thus Mauna Kea, 
for instance, may be as old as the islands to the north, 
having helped to build up the connection between itself 
and the other mountain islands long before the cessation 
of its own action. The various stages of upheaval may 
have occupied long ages. We seem, however, to be at 
Vulcan's furnace door as we view the glistening lava-fields 
that shimmer with the sun's heat as though all molten 
within. Men have sought to compute the amount of 
molten material that has been spread on the flanks of 
Mauna Loa during the last half-century. A conservative 
estimate puts the amount at about two cubic miles. At 
such a speed, we should find this particular island to be 
less than sixty-five thousand years old, thus making it, 
geographically considered, a recent creation. But there are 
evidences of violent catastrophism in the great gorges and 
enormous precipices that convince us that the origin of the 
islands is even more recent. 

WORLD BUILDING. At the brink of Kilauea, the 
enormous pit crater of Hawaii, we behold the mighty 
forces that have been building our world since the dawn 
of time. At the edge of the mammoth lava flows that 
have rushed down Mauna Loa forty miles to the sea, we 
discover the method by which the mighty forces of the 
interior have built up the land out of the water. This 



i 9 o VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 

is world building before our eyes. We seem to come 
into touch with the hoary ages when God said, Let the 
dry land appear. We get glimpses into the past of this 
planet of ours, more luminous than the most graphic 
portrayals of the beginnings of creation. The panorama 
of great processes of action lies open to our view. Here 
is the water all about and here is the land emerging from 
the deep. Here are the mighty constructive forces at 
work building the basis for vegetation and the habita- 
tion of man. These may be dying forces with their work 
almost completed, but they are the original forces that 
have made the world what it is to-day. Probably no 
country affords as convenient and accessible and enjoy- 
able advantages for viewing volcanic phenomena through- 
out their whole range as the island of Hawaii. 

MOKUAWEOWEO, THE TERRIBLE. The summit 
of Mauna Loa contains an immense pit nine and a half 
miles in circumference and from 800 to 1000 feet deep. 
This pit is the far-famed Mokuaweoweo from which 
periodical eruptions occur at intervals of eleven years. 
The pit always contains molten lava or steam. Some- 
times the overhanging clouds will be lighted up as though 
by a great conflagration when no eruption from the mount- 
ain takes place. At such times, numerous fountains, sev- 
eral hundred feet high, will spout liquid lava like so many 
whales sporting themselves in the sea. Those who have 



VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 191 

looked from the summit down into that vast caldron at 
such times have remarked the death-like stillness, broken 
only by the uncanny splash of the great molten clots fall- 
ing from the fountains back to the floor of the crater. At 
that great height, 13,675" feet, withdrawn from the noises 
of busy life far below, the echo of thud and splash,. and 
occasional explosion of confined gas is certainly unearthly 
enough. But the majesty of this mammoth mountain is 
realized only when with mighty effort it rends its sides 
and vomits forth rivers of fire that madly rush down its 
slopes sometimes even to the very sea. One such scene 
I recall vividly. At the time I was camping on Mauna 
Kea, just across the great plain that separates the two 
mountains. From the side -of Mauna Loa, at a height of 
10,000 feet, the molten river was belching forth like a 
torrent. At night, the course taken by the lava seemed 
like a sinuous stream of glowing fire, and all the mount- 
ain side was illuminated, and the glare came into our open 
tent, while across that black intervening waste of lava, 
desolate in the daytime, but weird and ominous at night, 
came low, discordant tones that told of the furious prog- 
ress of the outbreak. That broad stretching mountain 
seemed like a great den of fiery gorgons, one of whom 
was gliding all ablaze down toward the haunts of men. 
From the top of Mauna Kea, the next day, the impres- 
sion of the night before was not lessened as to the vast 



1 92 VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 

resources and limitless powers of Mauna Loa. The flanks 
of the sombre mountain showed numerous black ridges, 
where the lava had poured down, many of these ridges 
going back beyond the memory of man, while in every 
direction across the plateau lay the rigid lava-flows stretch- 
ing like tentacles until lost in the woods or in the haze of 
the distant shore line. 

GREAT INTERIOR PLAIN. Hawaii appears verdant 
and beautiful from the sea, but the immediate foreground, 
as seen from the slopes of Mauna Kea or Mauna Loa, is 
a wild waste of lava. Lava-flows have crossed and 
recrossed one another in a confused net-work, and the 
desolation is complete and awful. Among the more recent 
flows, the most pronounced are those of i8jj, 1859 and 
1880. These are clearly defined and are especially note- 
worthy for the vast amount of lava disgorged and the dis- 
tance traversed by each. Being more recent, their black, 
bulky masses impress the observer as do none of the 
others that may have been more terrible in their course 
but of which no record remains. Each of these three 
flows started from great rents in the mountain side, at 
elevations of from 10,000 to 12,000 feet. The 1855 and 
1880 flows had their sources in comparative proximity, 
but the 18^9 flow started well around on the opposite 
side of the mountain. 

THE LAVA FLOW OF i8jj. This flow was 




GREAT RUSH OF BOILING LAVA INTO THE WATER.- (Lava Flows of 

Mauna Loa is a better title.) Lava flows from the top of Mauna Loa have taken 
place from time to time. Rivers of lire have flowed down the Steep mountain side, 
sometimes moving slowly, lasting several months, and again dashing down with 

great speed, destroying everything in their path. 



VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 195 

remarkable for its extent, being from two to eight miles 
wide, with a depth of from three to three hundred feet, 
and extending in a winding course for a distance of sixty 
miles. Writes the Apostle of Hawaiian volcanoes, the 
Rev. Titus Coan, who went to the source of this flow 
while it was in supreme action, — "We ascended our 
rugged pathway amidst steam and smoke and heat which 
almost blinded and scathed us. We came to open orifices 
down which we looked into the fiery river which rushed 
madly under our feet. These fiery vents were frequent, 
some of them measuring ten, twenty, fifty or one hundred 
feet in diameter. In one place only we saw the river un- 
covered for thirty rods and rushing down a declivity of 
from ten to twenty-five degrees. The scene was awful, 
the momentum incredible, the fusion perfect (white heat), 
and the velocity forty miles an hour. The banks on each 
side of the stream were red-hot, jagged and overhanging. 
As we viewed it rushing out from under its ebon counter- 
pane, and in the twinkling of an eye diving again into its 
fiery den, it seemed to say, ' Stand off 1 Scan me riot 1 
I am God's messenger. A work to do. Away 1 ' " Later 
he wrote again, — " The great summit fountain is still play- 
ing with fearful energy, and the devouring stream 
rushes madly down toward us. It is now about ten 
miles distant, and heading directly for our bay. In a 
few days we may be called to announce the painful fact 



i 9 6 VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS 

our beauteous Hilo is no more, — that our our 

inimitable landscape, our emerald bowers, our crescent 
strand and our silver bay are blotted out A fiery 
hangs over us A flood of burning ruin approaches us 
Devouring fires are near us With sure and solemn prog- 
ress the glowing fusion advances through the dark f c 
and the dense jungle in our rear, cutting down ancient 
s of enormous growth and sweeping away all vege- 
table life. For months the great summit furnace on 
Mauna Loa has been in awful blast Floods of burning 
destruction have swept ily and widely over the top 
and down the sides of the mountain. The wTathful 
stream has overcome every obstacle, ending its fiery way 
from its high source to the bases of the everlasting hills, 

-ding in a molten sea over the plains, penetrating the 
ancient fores:s g the bellowing herds, the wild goats 

and the affrighted birds before its lurid glare ng noth- 

ing but ebon blackness and smoldering ruin in its tr:i 
With rigid beetling front this remarkable flow came to an 
abrupt halt seven miles from Hilo. 

THE LAVA FLOW OF 1859. Writes Mr. Coan of 
this outbreak, — "On the zid ult (January, 1859), the 
summit of Mauna Loa was rent with volcanic fires, and 

uge of igneous fusion rushed forth and poured c 
the mountain. Su; was the er _ : the tlood that in 
an hour or two it had reached some twenty miles, filling 






VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 197 

the heavens with light and rolling in vivid and burning 
waves over the plains below. At first we thought the 
stream was coming towards Hilo, but at length it turned 
and rolled over towards the western coast, and entered 
the sea on the eighth day after the eruption. The dis- 
tance may be fifty miles. It is still flowing with great 
power." 

Mr. Vaudrey, who was on the mountain at the time of 
this eruption, got as close as the heat would let him and 
described what he saw " as a simple fountain of white-hot 
molten stone, hundreds of feet high and wide, the fall of 
which made a continual dull roar, and caused the ground 
to tremble beneath me." 

Writes Mr. Green, who saw the lava from this flow 
entering the sea, — "The red-hot molten lava was quietly 
tumbling into the sea over a low ledge, perhaps six to 
eight feet high, and five to six hundred feet long. The lava 
did not seem to be quite so liquid, or of such a bright 
color as it did when it ran out of openings in the side 
wall of the stream up in the mountain. It ran more like 
porridge, in great, flattened spheroids, which were some- 
times partially united together, and sometimes almost sep- 
arate. There was no steam to be seen escaping from the 
lava, and it was not until after each spheroidal mass had 
disappeared for a second or two under water that puffs 
of steam came to the surface. The general effect, how- 



i 9 8 VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 

ever, was an apparent steady rise of steam along the whole 
line. It was a cataract of molten stone." 

THE LAVA FLOW OF 1880. Early Friday night, 
November 6, 1880, a bright light was reflected from the 
clouds above Mauna Loa that increased in brilliancy until 
morning. All day Saturday great clouds of smoke could 
be seen at Hilo, fifty miles away, rising from the mountain 
as from a city that had been swept by a great con- 
flagration. Saturday evening the mountain was wrapped 
in clouds, but toward midnight they scattered, revealing 
a spectacle that was magnificent beyond all description. 
The summit crater was emitting a dense smoke, lighted 
up by the molten lake of lava. Below, on the mountain 
side, was an embrasure from which the lava was running 
down like a river. Not a break could be seen from the 
outlet to the very head of the fiery mass. It was a con- 
tinuous stream of glowing lava, heated to incandescence, 
moving steadily down the mountain side. It was like a 
living creature gliding out of its fiery prison-house all 
aglow, 

"Squirming and gliding in the mountain's blaze, 
Like a great serpent with a skin of gold." 

Its progress was rapid considering the distance of the 
point of view, and subsequent observation along the line 
of the flow proved that the velocity must have been 
tremendous. 




KAiNEOHE VALLEY.— Kaneohe is on the north side of Oahu. The mountains 
form a vast circular wall surrounding the valley, with the exception of the side 
towards the ocean, where the waters of Kaheohe Bav wash the rocky shores. 



VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 201 

Mr. David Hitchcock, who was camping on Mauna 
Kea at the time of this outbreak, saw a spectacle that few 
human eyes have ever beheld. " We stood," writes he, 
"on the very edge of that flowing river of rock. Oh, 
what a sight it was ! Not twenty feet from us was this 
immense bed of rock slowly moving forward with irre- 
sistible force, bearing on its surface huge rock and im- 
mense bowlders of tons' weight as water would carry a 
toy-boat. The whole front edge was one bright red mass of 
solid rock incessantly breaking off from the towering mass 
and rolling down to the foot of it, to be again covered by 
another avalanche of white-hot rocks and sand. The 
whole mass at its front edge was from twelve to thirty 
feet in height. Along the entire line of its advance it was 
one crash of rolling, sliding, tumbling red-hot rock. We 
could hear no explosions while we were near the flow, 
only a tremendous roaring like ten thousand blast fur- 
naces all at work at once." This was the most extensive 
flow of recent years, and its progress from the interior 
plain through the dense forests above Hilo and out on to 
the open levels close to the town was startling and men- 
acing enough. Through the woods especially it was a 
turbulent, seething mass that toppled over mammoth trees, 
and licked up streams of water, and day and night kept up 
an unintermitting cannonade of explosions. The steam 
and imprisoned gases would burst the congealing surface 



202 VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOW"-. 

i loud detonations that could be heard for many miles. 
It was not an infrequent thing for parties to camp out 

r to the flow over night. Ordinarily a lava-flow 
moves sluggishly and congeals rapidly, so that what seems 

hardihood in the narrating is in reality calm judgment, 
for it is perfectly safe to be in the close vicinity of a lava- 
stream, and even to walk on its surface as soon as one 
would be inclined to walk on cooling iron in a foundry. 
This notable flow finally ceased within half a mile of Hilo, 
where its black form is a perpetual reminder of a marvel- 
lous deliverance from destruction. 

THE HILO VIADUCT. For several years there was 
a remarkable cave in the flow of 1880, about five miles 
from Hilo, which has since been broken in. In 1884. I 
went into this cave with a companion, and followed it 
down by tape-measure 1 1 90 feet. The entrance was a 
red-lava flume with a dip of 35°, the surface all about 
being hard and highly polished. We went in on our 

ks, feet first, through a narrow opening, and drop 
3 three feet into a tunnel, whose dark polishe:. sides 

. studded with nodes that glistened in t .die- 

light. This tunnel was of striking beauty. We went in a 
couching posture for one hundred and thirty- feet, when 
we came out into a large gallery twelve or fifteen feet 
high and about ten feet wide. After we had gone three 
hundred and thirty feet we came to a I ave-in from 



VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 203 

the roof of the viaduct, which contained many tons of 
basaltic lava. We then went down a steeper decline. 
The tunnel became so contracted that at times it was dif- 
ficult to go ahead. Now and then we met with little vil- 
lages of stalagmites that seemed like so many diminutive 
denizens of the nether world. We cut our heads against 
the numerous stalactites that hung their sharp points from 
the arching roof. At a thousand feet we discovered day- 
light ahead, and at last stood under an opening through 
which we could again gaze into the bright blue sky. This 
tunnel was the central viaduct through which the molten 
stream from the mountain sustained the onward move- 
ment of that vast field of lava that now lies black and 
ugly back of Hilo. What a gallery of furies must this 
have been as the mad mass sped along I It is now cold 
and black and silent, the catacombs of exhausted phys- 
ical energies that have passed away in the building of a 
world. 

THE FORGES OF VULCAN. It will take long years 
to efface the impression made on me by the fiery flank of 
Mauna Loa as I saw it at midnight from the summit of 
Mauna Kea, in 1880. There was that dome-like mount- 
ain, a huge black mass, whose interior is a vast furnace 
of fire, and by the side of which Vesuvius is but a toy. 
There were those rising clouds of illuminated smoke, and 
through the open furnace door we could see the elemental 



204 VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 

fires as they glowed ominously across the midnight waste. 
And yet there was no earthquake, no sound of the raging 
fires, nothing but the silence of night and the glowing 
lava, and far below us, but unseen, the broad Pacific 
washing the shores of Hilo, but bringing to our ears no 
roar of breakers or of surf. Quite in contrast was the 
weird feeling that came over me as I sat at night in the 
silent forest and heard the dull detonations of the lava 
five miles away, as it burned and crashed its way through 
the dense woods. Occasionally one explosion louder 
than the rest startles me with the thought of its prox- 
imity. Sometimes several explosions follow in quick 
succession, and I am impressed with what seems to be 
the unearthly industry of those elemental forces. As the 
boom boom ! comes through the tree tops is it hard to 
imagine that the forges of Vulcan are in full blast, and 
that the Cyclops are hammering away for dear life ? Is 
it surprising that with such sounds in their memory, the 
ancients, in their mythologies, should have peopled the 
bowels of the earth with divinities and giant workers? 
Or, is it strange that those simple islanders, in the times 
of their ignorance, should have yielded homage to Pele, 
the feminine Vulcan of Hawaiian tradition ? 

KILAUEA. Hawaii boasts the largest active volcano in 
the world. Kilauea, unlike Mokauweoweo, is ceaselessly 
in action. Great eruptions are not constantly occurring, 



VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 207 

but the lava in the various lakes of Kilauea is never 
quiescent and is frequently in violent ebullition. This 
volcano is a pit five or six hundred feet deep, and eight 
miles in circumference. What a pit it is ! Down on its 
floor men look no larger than crows. As we descend, 
those cliffs at our left beetle over us as though they really 
were falling. And when the floor is reached and we look 
up it quite strains the muscles of one's neck. Why, 
several boastful American cities could be dumped into that 
pit and never a monument or steeple of them all would 
show above its rim. Its floor is as black as though a fire 
had swept across its prairie-like surface, but it glistens and 
shimmers in the sunshine like a floor of glass. It does 
not appear so level on nearer approach, but is like an 
immense ice-floe, the great cakes and slabs of lava being 
piled- up in endless confusion. 

FLOOR OF THE CRATER. I take my first step on 
the glistening surface and it crackles under foot like the 
thin icy crust on snow. The lava, cooling rapidly, forms a 
thin layer of the nature of glass, hard and sharp but 
exceedingly brittle. Underneath this vitreous shell the 
denser lava congeals more slowly, and is heavy as stone, 
whereas the crust is light as charcoal and nearly as porous. 
How it sparkles on its nether sidel In the sunlight it 
gives back all the colors of the precious stones — amethyst, 
beryl, ruby, sapphire and emerald. Its surface is com- 



208 VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 

paratively smooth, but turn it and the light penetrates 
millions of opaline cells. This wafer-like crust in some 
places is only a treacherous covering of concealed fissures 
and cavities. Crunch, crunch we go in Indian file on our 
weary three-mile walk. Here is a place where the lava 
spread out its long fingers like the tentacles of a devil- 
fish. Here we are reminded of the great hawsers of an 
ocean steamship, so exactly are all the ropy twistings imi- 
tated. I break off a small cone, a few inches high, and 
it is a nest of sulphur crystals. I put my hand into a 
crack and it is uncomfortably warm. I step on one end 
of a large slab of lava and it breaks like ice, giving me 
a fall of six inches or more, — a thing which somewhat 
startles me. The smoke rises ahead of us, but we can 
see nothing more. What will be our sensations when 
we reach that awful caldron and look down on its rest- 
less, heaving surface 1 A mile back the guide whets the 
excitement of the occasion by running to a hillock that is 
unusually black and glistening, and which proves to be 
decidedly warm. " That was last night," he says, with 
beaming face. 

THE LAKE OF FIRE. The guide leads across fissures 
that are multiplying about us, and from which hot air 
rises. This place looks as though it might vomit liquid 
lava any moment. Here we teeter on a broad cake, that 
may be the only thing between us and the liquid lava. 



VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 209 

How hollow our feet sound as we step from cake to 
cake! I hear what sounds like the sea madly booming 
in a deep cavern. I hear the sizzling of steam. The 
swash of the surf, and the grinding and crackling of a 
river breaking up in spring are sounds that become more 
distinct at each step. The heat is intense. All the way 
the sun has shone with steady glare, and its rays have 
been sent back into our faces from the glass-like surface. 
But now the heat is dry and burns with its breath. 
Louder and louder are the sounds so strangely mixed. 
A report deep as of a cannon is followed by a rattle of 
musketry. Just then, we run a few steps to the left, 
and Halemaumau, the house everlasting, the lake which 
burneth with fire and brimstone, whose fire is not 
quenched, lies all exposed to view. At the farther end is 
a red-hot cave into which the lava booms and splashes, 
and from whose roof hang numberless orange-colored 
stalactites, just in process of formation, the ends of the 
longer ones anon bathed in the ebbing and glowing cur- 
rent, and dripping like melting icicles. Yonder is an island, 
behind which there is exceptional disturbance. The great 
surface heaves like billows and, dashing against the walls 
which inclose the lake, spatters them with great clots of 
melted stone. Again the lake is as immobile as though 
frozen. At such times visitors look with disdain at the 
brown congealed surface. Where is the turbulent sea of 



2io- VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 

fire ? they exclaim. Hardly does such a complaint escape 
when crack ! and a seam opens clear across the lake, and 
a yellowish-red liquid oozes out that looks like boiling 
molasses. The activity increases. A dozen fountains 
begin to play. The whole surface palpitates, the cracks 
multiply, and like a mighty tide the current sets in behind 
the island, fountains playing at many points over the 
rapidly changing lake. Halemaumau, now everywhere 
broken and boiling, begins to rise. The lava moves about 
in indescribable currents, crowds the narrow passage back 
of the island, halts a moment, and tips one-third of the 
mass into the seething lake. It is like the launching of 
an iron-clad. Liquid tongues of fire leap up and close 
over it, the great cakes of congealed lava slide over the 
place where it disappeared, and the mighty mass continues 
throbbing until gradually the surface congeals again, and 
all action seems to cease. As one stands in the hot 
breathings of that busy caldron, it is easy to recall the 
graphic imagery of T. B. Aldrich: — 

" I saw wild figures there, 
Sometimes it was a castle 
With turrets all agleam ; 
A draw bridge, stretching like an arm 
Across the molten stream ; 
Gonfalons, and warriors 
Encased in armor red; 
And all the legends I had heard 
Came trooping thro' my head." 



VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 211 

THE GODDESS PELE. When there is unusual com- 
motion in Kilauea, myriads of thread-like filaments float 
in the air and fall upon the cliffs, making deposits much 
resembling matted hair. A single filament over fifteen 
inches long was picked up by me from my Hilo veranda, 
having sailed in the air from Mokuaweoweo, a distance 
of fifty miles. This is the famous Pele's Hair, being the 
glass-like product of volcanic fires. It resembles Prince 
Rupert's Drops, and the tradition is that whenever the vol- 
cano becomes active, it is because Pele, the goddess of 
this pit, emerges from her fiery furnace and shakes her 
vitreous locks in anger. This fabled being, according to 
Emerson, in a paper on The Lesser Hawaiian Gods, 
"could at times assume the appearance of a handsome 
young woman, as when Kamapuaa, to his cost, was 
smitten with her charms when first he saw her with her 
sisters at Kilauea." This Kamapuaa was a gigantic hog who 
"could appear as a handsome young man, a hog, a fish, or 
a tree." "At other times the innate character of the fury 
showed itself, and Pele appeared in her usual form as an 
ugly and hateful old hag, with tattered and fire-burnt 
garments, scarcely concealing the filth and nakedness of 
her person. Her bloodshot eyes and fiendish counte- 
nance paralyzed the beholder, and her touch turned him 
to stone. She was a jealous and vindictive monster, de- 
lighting in cruelty, and at the slightest provocation over- 



212 VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 

whelming the unoffending victims of her rage in wide- 
spread ruin." 

AT CLOSER RANGE. Notwithstanding the terrific 
eruptions that have traced their tale of destruction over a 
large part of Hawaii, it is comparatively safe to venture 
on to the surface, underneath which a molten tide is rush- 
ing, or to stand within reaching distance of the palpitating 
but viscid surface of some of the smaller lakes in the 
crater of Kilauea. There are premonitory symptoms of 
approaching eruption that give ample warning to experi- 
enced persons. Do you wish to study the movement of 
great lava-flows? Here is a tiny stream, moving slug- 
gishly on the floor of the crater, and we seat ourselves 
within three feet of it and watch its progress. The dark 
crust, only partially congealed at the front of the stream, 
swells and swells until it opens and exudes molten matter 
sufficient to cover a square foot, which in turn congeals 
and grows blacker until the pressure of the heated mass 
in the conduit underneath again lifts up the crust and 
spreads itself as before. The direction of the flow de- 
pends wholly upon the location of the weakest spots in 
the congealed surface. If that is always at the front, the 
pressure will cause the lava to go up hill rather than down 
a steep slope close at hand, down which it certainly would 
go were the congealed crust on that side weaker than 
in front. 



VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 213 

Do you wish to hear the weird, uncanny voices from 
the bottomless pit ? Come with me to yonder cone, fif- 
teen feet high, that is puffing like a fire-engine. We go up 
to it, and find that its base is hot and that lava is oozing 
out of an opening in the side. We thrust our canes into 
the steam-hole and the cone trembles and roars as though 
it would blow us out of existence. Just beyond we climb 
up another cone, and peer down into its interior as well 
as we can in the face of hot currents and puffs that almost 
scorch us. Those mumblings and sibilant sounds may 
well be the language of intangible and hideous furies in 
the bowels of the earth. 

Do you wish to touch with your cane the surface of a 
small lake that is not in ebullition ? Then come with me 
to South Lake. We clamber over bowlders and slabs of 
lava that not many weeks ago were a seething mass, and 
the hot air seems hotter and the way more hazardous 
when suddenly we find ourselves at the edge of an omi- 
nously quiet pond of lava, whose surface trembles and 
whose edges show the highly-heated, orange-colored 
liquid glowing underneath. We watch with fascination 
those peculiar palpitations and quiverings so characteristic 
of viscid bodies at high temperature. The white heat 
below that thin crust is little less than 3000 Fahrenheit, 
and yet such an excellent non-conductor is the congealed 
surface that, although almost beaten back by the heat, we 



214 VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 

actually press that surface with our canes, holding our hats 
before our faces. 

REMARKABLE DISAPPEARANCE OF FIRES. The 
great lake of Halemaumau has been in constant action for 
ages, and is still the largest active volcano in the world. 
But in March, 1886, the fires in that ancient caldron totally 
disappeared, and the immediate vicinity sank to a depth 
of nearly six hundred feet. As related by Thrum, in a 
pamphlet on The Suspended Activity of Kilauea, "Dis- 
tant rumbling noises were heard, accompanied by a series 
of earthquakes, forty-three in number. With the fourth 
shock, which was quite severe, the brilliancy of New Lake 
disappeared, and towards 3 A. M. the fires in Halemaumau 
disappeared also, leaving the whole crater in darkness. 
With the dawn the shocks and noises ceased, and revealed 
the changes which Kilauea had undergone in the night. 
All the high cliffs surrounding Halemaumau and New 
Lake, which had become a prominent feature in the crater, 
had vanished entirely, and the molten lava of both lakes 
had disappeared by some subterranean passage from the 
bottom of Halemaumau. There was no material change 
in the sunken portion of the crater except a continual 
falling in of rocks and debris from its banks, as the 
contraction from its former intense heat loosened their 
compactness and sent them hurling some 200 or 300 feet 
below, giving forth at times a boom as of distant thunder, 




THE GREAT CRATER OF KILAUEA.— On the island of Hawaii is the 
largest active volcano in the world. The crater of Kilauea is on the slopes ol 
Mauna Loa, four thousand feet above the level of the sea. It is nine miles in 
circumference, with a depth, at present, of five hundred feet. 



VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 217 

followed by clouds of cinders and ashes shooting up into 
the air 100 to 300 feet, proportionate, doubtless, to the size 
of the newly fallen mass." 

This remarkable recession of the liquid lava in Hale- 
maumau presented a vivid illustration of the dying throes 
of exhausted volcanoes. The Rev. Mr. Baker, probably 
the most adventuresome explorer of Hawaiian volcanoes, 
actually descended into that crumbling pit to a point within 
what he judged to be fifty feet of the bottom. But Hale- 
maumau had only taken an intermission, and in two short 
months signs of returning life became frequent and un- 
mistakable, and in June culminated in the sudden out- 
break of a lake that has since then steadily increased in 
activity. 

SULPHUR DEPOSITS. The vicinity of Kilauea is 
marked by fissures and cracks and steamholes that have 
been formed by the violence of earthquakes and the per- 
sistent pressure of imprisoned gases. Over some of these 
fissures and holes deposits of sulphur are found, in one 
instance forming an extensive bed that well repays a visit. 
Such a visit impresses one with the awe that steadily 
grows in the presence of these hidden forces of the earth. 
We come to a large bank or mound of decomposed sul- 
phur crystals, between which and a precipice of basalt 
we pick our way, anon charmed at the purity and beauty 
of crystals freshly formed at the mouths of vent-holes, 



2iS VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS 

scalded it may be by the steam that does not congeal, so 
that we can know when to be on our guard, and pro- 
foundly shaken in our confidence in things terrestrial as 
turning the comer of a bowlder we hear unearthly and 
half-human gurglings under our fee:. Really we see:n to 
be nearer the bottomless pit than when looking down 
upon the fires in Halemaumau, three miles aw 

FROM CHAC S 7 D PARADISE. Some one has called 
attention to a remark that :jji be seen at 

Kilauea at certain seasons of the year. When the hea\y 
gases hang at night in clouds like reflectors over the glow- 
ing lakes of Kilauea, clear and beautiful in the unclouded 
sky shines t he incomparable Southern Cr :ss. .As we turn 
from that great pit, a stronger contrast is close at hand. 
Ample accommodations in a modem-built hotel : 
afforded us the comforts of easy beds and of well-sp 
tables, but our eyes have looked out upon the de\*asta- 
tion and lurid lights of a terrible abyss from every door 
and window. We can ride over a good road in a carriage 
from our hotel to charming Hilo, thirty miles away, and a 
moment's : :s that 

" Deep Hades of the seven Phlegethoos " 

behind us and completely out of sight, and ushers us 
into a ne rid of luxuriant tropic verdure. We can not 

forget nor wholly shut out from our thoughts the sc: 
left behind, but the memory of them serves to enha 



VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 219 

the enjoyment of this truly delightful ride. Tali tree-Terns 
bend benevolently over the ample roadway, and the fra- 
grance of the woods, and the grateful shade and the occa- 
sional fluttering of timid birds, and the rare glimpses of 
Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa with their cloaks of snow, 
render this ride a memorable one. Its attractiveness in- 
creases as the road nears Hilo. The last woods are dense 
and high, and there is a truly tropical profusion of vegeta- 
tion. At last Hilo, with its incomparably beautiful bay, 
and its grand mountains, and its quiet, shaded streets, 
and its seclusion from the noisy world, welcomes the tired 
traveler to all the blessings of an earthly Paradise. After a 
bath in one of those wonderful Hilo tubs, into which and 
out of which the limpid streams are forever flowing, you 
seat yourself on the veranda in a reclining chair where 
the fragrant odors of roses and plumerias suffuse the air, 
and listen to the tales of host and hostess about the 
famous lava-flows and the earthquake experiences of a 
generation. 

EARTHQUAKES OF 1868. This eruption was the 
most remarkable and disastrous one in the history of the 
Islands. Writes Alexander, "On the 27th of March an 
eruption began in the summit crater of Mauna Loa, at- 
tended by a long series of earthquake shocks. At length, 
on the 25th of April, a terrific earthquake took place, which 
shook down every stone wall and nearly every house in 



220 VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 

Kau, and did more or less damage in every part of Hawaii. 
Immediately after this earthquake a tremendous wave, 
forty or fifty feet high, rolled in upon the coast of Kau, 
sweeping away all the villages from Kaalualu to Keau- 
hou, and destroying some cocoanut groves. Over eighty 
persons perished in a few minutes, and the survivors 
were left destitute and suffering.' , In the words of Mr. 
Coan: "The shock filled all Kau, Hilo and Puna with 
awe and consternation. It seemed as if the very pillars 
and frame-work of creation would break. For three min- 
utes, while it continued, I had scarcely a hope for our 
house or for our town. One woman was killed near us 
by a falling bank that buried her. Scores of people escaped 
as by a miracle, while the rocks were falling around them. 
The sea came in up to Front Street, and threatened to 
overwhelm all along the shore. That was a fearful night ; 
people left their houses and walked the streets or clus- 
tered under trees or camped in the fields watching for 
the morning." 

In the district of Kau there were said to have been 
over two thousand shocks from March 28th to April 1 ith. 
" Earthquakes are to me more terrific than volcanic erup- 
tion," writes Mr. Coan, " because they come so suddenly, 
giving no warning and no time to escape, while men may 
usually walk deliberately away from a lava stream, taking 
many of their precious things with them." Eye-witnesses 



VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 223 

jf the shocks in Kau, where they were most severely 
felt, describe them as throwing persons from their feet, 
and as serving horses and other animals in the same way. 
Wrote Mr. Lyman, "First the earth swayed to and fro, 
north and south, then east and west, round and round, 
then up and down and in every imaginable direction for 
several minutes, everything crashing around us, the trees 
thrashing about as if torn by a mighty rushing wind. It 
was impossible to stand; we had to sit on the ground, 
bracing with hands and feet to keep from rolling over." 

LEGEND OF HALAI. It was but natural that such 
surroundings should develop among the early aborigines a 
belief in the malignancy of their gods. There are legends, 
however, that show that there were glimpses of a finer 
spirit of beneficent service wrought by their deities, as 
when "Maui sprang upon the sun and broke off some 
of his rays, so that he was thereafter obliged to travel at 
a slower pace through the heavens and furnish a day of 
sufficient length for kapa drying and other domestic cares." 
Back of Hilo are three cone craters in a line to the sea. 
Distressed by a long-continued drought, a Kahuna an- 
nounced that some one must offer himself as a sacrifice 
in order to secure rain. One of the most beloved prin- 
cesses thereupon offered herself and was burned alive. 
Shortly afterwards one of these hills rose in the place 
where the sacrifice was made. " Our princess is a god 



224 VOLCANOES AND LAVA FLOWS. 

and is walking to the sea for water for our land," said the 
people, as another hill rose a little nearer the sea. Later, 
the last hill, Halai, came up, and then, after patient waiting 
by the expectant people, copious rains descended and 

7 t ::ei recuse the:: ieifiei r::r.:ess 
reached the sea, and filled the clouds till they burst with 
7.;:~f sr.i'.vers. 

HEATHEN OBLATIONS. In 1881, when the roar- 
ing river which had threatened to overwhelm beautiful 
Hilo had well-nigh expended its energy and was slowly 
spreading out but making little progress forward, another 
princess, neither young nor beautiful, a woman of the 
75 physique and of the densest mind, encamped 
her retainers on one of these craters dose to the la\^a 
stream, and performed heathen rites to avert the impend- 
ing disaster. There was none of the heroic in her act or 
in any of the surroundings. She broke bottles of brandy 
on the black lava, and made the goddess Pele presents of 
silk handkerchiefs and other trifles, and for two w 
conducted incantations on a generous scale. Shortly after 

_7-;r.rr. 

The legend of the princess who sacrificed herself, and 
the act of the princess whose superstition convinced her 
of the efficacy of incantatier e alike the product of 

infantile imagination, as compared with the grander con- 

uon of mighty fo: rking by design. 



HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 

KAMEHAMEHA'S ARBITRARY REIGN. Kame- 
hameha I. was a conqueror, subjugating everything to his 
personal will. So long as he lived, his iron will and mas- 
terful spirit prevailed over all opposition. He was, more- 
over, possessed of statesmanlike qualities. He saw the 
need of buttressing the newly organized monarchy, and 
so insisted on all the minute requirements of the tabu 
system relative to the sacredness of the king's person. 
He likewise made himself supreme by claiming personal 
ownership of all the land, which he dextrously assigned 
to his favorite chiefs, to hold at his pleasure, thus attach- 
ing them to his cause. He moreover made it well-nigh 
impossible for ambitious chiefs to establish themselves in 
successful opposition to his rule by assigning each chief 
land, not in one district but in several, thus avoiding con- 
centration of power in the hands of any but himself. He 
shrewdly retained about his person those chiefs whom 
he distrusted, limiting thus their temptation to sedition. 
He was an arbitrary ruler, strong, sagacious, alert, but a 
thorough pagan and a believer in the sacredness of kings. 
He came to his supreme control through conflict and the 
disastrous rout of his foes, organizing order and respect 

226 



226 HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 

for authority in the midst of confusion and internecine 
warfare ; but, while his conquest brought peace to a war- 
scouiged land, it introduced no new privileges for the 
common people, but bound them rather in closer sub- 
seniency to king and chiefs and priests. There was one 
ruler instead of many, but not the slightest exemption for 
the people from the burdens of an irksome serfdom. 

REACTION SETS IN. Wr.er. :r.e s:r:r.z r^.z :: 
Ki~ehi~er.2 ur.'.::sei ::s rrisr, :: rr.ir^rzi ".ir.'.r '.v'r.j 
came after him. He incarnated in himself the oppressive 
system that had exhausted itself in its excesses, and when 
he dosed his eyes in death the spell was broken, and the 
nation broke away from all ar: 
hameha's son no sooner found himself at the head 
nation than he threw the weight of his example i 
scales against a perpetuation of the tabu system. 

s : queens urged the son on to the course that 
proved popular even among the priests of the old order, 
and forthwith the nation swung out from under the irk- 
some restraints of organized heathenism into the utmost 
license of personal depravity regardless of all conse- 
quences. This was an opportune moment for the intro- 
duction of the new forces, individual and social, that came 
with the Gospel missionaries. But it was a fatal blow to 
centralized and organized authority. A less \iolent transi- 
tion would have conserved the interests of the monarchy. 




IOL\X[ P\L\CE One of the most conspicuous buildings of Honolulu is the 

Iolanf Palace, the former residence of the ruler of Hawaii, now used by the present 
government- It is of prettv. modest architecture, built of brick and covered with 
cem, ,nds in spacious grounds, filled with many varieties of palms and 

Bt tropical foliage. 



HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 229 

Although the king himself was the apostle and guide into 
the lawlessness and dissipation that ensued, his course 
was in effect a blow at the political prestige of the mon- 
archy. Henceforth there was to be constant pressure for 
larger privileges, a pressure that even the throne could not 
ignore without further loss of prestige and of power. 

GROWTH OF POLITICAL PRIVILEGE. The cen- 
tury from 1 79 j, when Kamehameha acquired by conquest 
the sovereignty of the Islands, to 1893, when the mon- 
archy in the person of Liliuokalani collapsed by its own 
act, marks a gradual growth of political privilege accom- 
panied by futile attempts to retain royal prerogatives, and 
in some instances to regain what had been lost. The 
century, however, is also marked by voluntary conces- 
sions from the throne that indicated wise statesmanship 
and a liberal and progressive spirit, notably in the career 
of Kamehameha III. For twenty-four years Kamehameha 
the Great held the nation as in a vise. His son, during a 
short reign of five years, by his dissipation and weak- 
ness, encouraged turbulence and a rebellious spirit. The 
accession of Kauikeaouli, the second son of Kamehameha, 
ushered in a reign that proved in many respects the most 
beneficent in Hawaiian history. Great credit must be 
accorded this enlightened prince for so heartily recognizing 
the principle of popular rights. He might have obstructed 
and delayed the emancipation of his people, but with his 



230 HAWAIIAN MONARCHY.. 

large resources as a natural leader he chose to promote 
the condition of the common people. I he indirect in- 
fluence of Gospel teaching induced conditions that he was 
wise to improve, but which would have brought about 
inevitably the same results without his aid, albeit not so 
rapidly and peaceably. 

BASIS OF POLITICAL UNREST. It was during the 
reign of Kamehameha III. that the great religious awak- 
ening occurred. From the terrorism of the ancient tabu 
system, the common people came out into the light and 
liberty of a Christian civilization. The profound influence 
exerted upon the emancipated people by the stimulus of 
new ideas and by personal contact with the remarkable 
men forming the American mission, can not be overesti- 
mated as affording the basis for political advancement. 
Schools sprang up all over the nation. Books were scat- 
tered among the people. Brought face to face with the 
great and uplifting truths of the Christian religion, the 
common people were taught to think, and encouraged to 
decide and act and helped to bear responsibilities. Politi- 
cal advancement has more than once in history been built 
up on the basis of religious progress and enlightenment. 
The marvellous changes wrought in the nation under 
Kamehameha III. are inexplicable except as the religious 
awakening and the consequent intellectual and moral de- 
velopment of the people furnish the basis. The king was 



HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 231 

affected by the apparent readiness of the common people 
for a more progressive government, as he was also con- 
strained by the social and industrial necessity of a read- 
justment in the ownership of land. He was in touch 
with his times, and his reign, the longest of any Hawaiian 
monarch, covering a period of twenty-nine years, was the 
golden era of the Hawaiian race. 

THE FIRST CONSTITUTION. Though the first Ha- 
waiian Constitution was the free gift of Kamehameha III. 
to his people, it is worthy of note that he was aided in its 
drafting by graduates of the highest school in the nation, 
whose acquired ideas of government had marked influence 
in shaping that instrument. The king thus conceded to 
his subjects at the outset a share in formulating the funda- 
mental law of the land. By this constitution a legislative 
branch of the government was constituted, consisting of 
fifteen hereditary nobles and seven representatives, elected 
by the people. For the first time, Hawaiian subjects were 
thus accorded a legitimate participation in the govern- 
ment. The granting of this constitution naturally led to 
legislation improving the condition of the people, and 
equalizing the burdens of taxation. Thus all arbitrary 
taxes and all arbitrary forced labor were done away with, 
and the right of individuals distinctly outlined. The spirit 
of this constitution may be inferred from the follow- 
ing quotation : " Protection is hereby assured to the per- 



232 HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 

sons of all the people, together with their lands, their 
building lots, and all their property, while they conform 
to the laws of the kingdom, and nothing whatever shall 
be taken from any individual except by express provision 
of the law." That the mass of the people did not com- 
prehend the importance of this concession made it none 
the less a remarkable advance in popular rights, laying the 
foundations for subsequent concessions of even greater 
political privilege. Whatever its effect on the monarchy, 
it was a wise and patriotic measure. 

CONSTITUTION OF i8p. The constitution of 1840 
came directly from the king as a gratuitous grant to his 
people. Twelve years of constitutional government, albeit 
crudely organized and administered, was like an era of 
education to the people in the rights and privilges of citi- 
zenship, and so, when steps were taken in iSp to draft 
a new and better constitution, we are hardly surprised to 
note that it was the legislature that provided for a com- 
mission for that purpose. We are not surprised greatly to 
note also that in this commission the king, the nobles, and 
the representatives were each given a voice, being each 
represented by a commission of their own. The nature 
of this constitution likewise shows the prodigious strides 
taken in constitutional privilege. In two important par- 
ticulars the constitution of 18^2 was a great advance on 
that of 1840. The representatives were increased in 



HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 233 

number, and were allowed the privilege of sitting in a 
separate house, with their own parliamentary organiza- 
tion. The adoption of this constitution by nobles and 
representatives, and its signature by the king, fairly inau- 
gurated a liberal constitutional government under auspi- 
cious conditions. Thus far we have sound political 
evolution without any of the conflicts and antagonisms 
that have elsewhere marked the progress of constitutional 
government. But the basis had been laid for friction that 
was sure to follow under less progressive and patriotic 
monarchs. 

PERILS FROM WITHOUT. It was during the reign 
of Kamehameha III. that the nation passed through the 
strain of foreign interference which, on several occa- 
sions, endangered the autonomy of Hawaii. It was 
fortunate that the king was patriotic and discreet, for a 
headstrong or a vacillating or a cowardly ruler, in spite 
of shrewd and weighty counsel, would have precipitated 
the downfall of the monarchy and wrecked the indepen- 
dence of the nation. This foreign interference had its real 
source in the mutual jealousies of France and England, 
both nations being busily engaged in acquiring new pos- 
sessions in the Pacific. Both nations were undoubtedly 
encouraged in their encroachments by the absence, at that 
time, of any pronounced policy on the part of the United 
States toward those islands. The practical failure of either 



234 HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 

nation to impair the sovereignty of Hawaii was due 
mainly to the helpful counsel and service of foreign resi- 
dents, and to the timely recognition by the United States 
of the autonomy of Hawaii and of its purpose to sustain 
that autonomy. 

FRENCH AGGRESSIONS. The ostensible reason for 
French interference in the government of Hawaii was the 
protection of French residents in the enjoyment of reli- 
gious privileges. The king and the chiefs in 1837 "issued 
a severe ordinance rejecting the Catholic religion, which 
forbade the teaching of that religion, or the landing of any 
teacher of it except in cases of necessity." This position, 
however, under the pressure of better counsels from Pro- 
testant missionaries and others, was abandoned and an 
edict of toleration was issued June 17, 1839. On July 9, 
1839, the French frigate Artemise, Capt. Laplace, arrived 
at Honolulu, for the purpose of putting an end "to the 
ill-treatment to which the French have been victims at 
the Sandwich Islands.'* Without making any investiga- 
tion, Laplace formulated several demands, exacting the 
immediate payment of twenty thousand dollars as a guar- 
antee of future good conduct towards France. " If the 
king and chiefs refuse to sign the treaty I present, war 
will immediately commence, and all the devastations 
and calamities which may result shall be imputed to 
them alone." Foreign residents came to the aid of the 



HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 



oo 



government in loaning money to meet this demand. That 
the ostensible reason for these demands was not the real 
one appears in the fact that Laplace, two days afterwards, 
insisted on the unconditional signing of a new treaty 
affording French residents privileges not accorded to other 
foreign residents. Three years later similar demands were 
formulated by Capt. Mallet, of the French corvette Em- 
buscade. "The king made a courteous and dignified 
reply," writes Alexander, "assuring Capt Mallet that com- 
plete religious toleration was secured by the constitution 
and laws of his kingdom, and that if there had been any 
instances of abuse, they were not authorized by the gov- 
ernment, and that the courts of justice were open to all, 
and would afford redress if appealed to. In conclusion, 
he informed Capt. Mallet that an embassy had been sent 
to France to ask for a new treaty." Seven years later 
Admiral De Tromelin submitted ten demands, the king 
at once responding, " that the courts of the kingdom were 
open for the redress of all grievances, and that until justice 
had been denied by them there could be no occasion for 
diplomatic interference." The French Admiral immediately 
took possession of the fort, dismantling it, confiscating all 
the shipping and destroying everything in the governor's 
house. This French occupation lasted for ten days, 
after which the admiral sailed away. Two years later 
the French Commissioner again presented the same ten 



236 HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 

demands. This led to the preparation of a proclamation 
by the king, from which we quote : " Finding our rela- 
tions with France so oppressive to my kingdom, so incon- 
sistent with its rights as an independent state, and so 
obstructive of all our endeavors to administer the govern- 
ment of our islands with equal justice with all nations 
and equal independence of all foreign control, and des- 
pairing of equity and justice from France, hereby proclaim 
as our royal will and pleasure that all our islands and all 
our rights as sovereign over them are from date hereof 
placed under the protection and safeguard of the United 
States of America until some arrangement can be made 
to place our said relations with France upon a footing 
compatible with my rights as an independent sovereign 
under the laws of nations and compatible with my treaty 
engagements with other foreign nations; or, if such ar- 
rangements be found impracticable, then is our wish and 
pleasure that the protection aforesaid under the United 
States of America be perpetual.'' The knowledge that this 
proclamation was drawn up, and waiting only the inser- 
tion of the date to make it operative, led to the with- 
drawal of the French demands, which have never since 
been presented. 

ENGLISH AGGRESSIONS. The ostensible reason 
for English interference was to secure the protection of 
English residents in certain land-claims, which, with a 






PRINCESS KaIULANL— She is the daughter of Mr. Cleghoru, a Scotchman, who 
has resided in Honolulu for many years, and Like-Like, a sister of the ex-Queen 
Liliuokalaui. Like-Like died in 18S7. She was appointed heir apparent to the 
throne of Hawaii by Liliuokalani in 1891. 



HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 239 

single exception, were afterward acknowledged to be un- 
just. On February 10, 1843, the British frigate Carysfort, 
commanded by Lord George Paulet, arrived at Honolulu. 
Lord Paulet, a few days after, sent peremptory demands 
accompanied by the threat that if they were not immedi- 
ately complied with, " coercive steps would follow." The 
King responded that ambassadors had been sent to Eng- 
land with full power to settle all difficulties, but that he 
would comply with the demands made until the British 
government should be heard from. Subsequent pressure 
from Lord Paulet convinced the King that the seizure of 
the Islands was intended, and he accordingly ceded them 
temporarily, pending an appeal to the British government. 
Just forty-nine years after the cession to Vancouver, the 
British colors were again hoisted, and a British Commis- 
sion assumed control of the government. This continued 
for five months, until the arrival of Admiral Thomas, who 
disavowed the seizure of the Islands by Paulet, and on 
July 31st restored again the Hawaiian flag, causing the 
British men-of-war to salute it with twenty-one guns. 

REAL INTENT OF FOREIGN INTERFERENCE. 
Writing in 1873, Hon. S. N. Castle, a man long in confiden- 
tial relations with the different sovereigns, and on intimate 
terms with foreign representatives at Honolulu, said, " It 
has been stated to the writer that Capt. Laplace, in 1839, 
did not expect that the $20,000 demanded by him could 



240 HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 

be raised, and that in failure thereof he would take p ^ses- 
sion, as he had just done at Tahiti. Such is also believed 
to have been the intention of Capt. Mallet in 1842. The 
occupation by the British in 1843 was to anticipate French 
occupation, which they believed to have been determined 
upon, as was stated by one of the British Commissioners 
to the writer at the time. That occupation, however, 
ha\ing taken place, would have continued, as stated by 
Lord Aberdeen to Mr. Richards, if the Admiral had not 
already restored the flag. And it is stated that the Admiral 
was moved to do this when he did, because Lord Paulet 
did not send his despatches to him as he should have 
done, but sent them directly to the foreign office." 

Edward Everett, then American Minister to England, 
wrote from London to the State Department, August 15, 
1843, "Had France got possession of the islands, she 
would certainly have retained them. Had intelligence been 
received here of Lord George Paulet's occupation of them 
before the promise was given to recognize them, England, 
I think, would not have given them up." 

It is worthy of note that Commodore Kearney, of the 
United States frigate Constellation, arming at Honolulu on 
the 6th of July, issued a protest against the cession, and 
when his vessel was visited by Governor Kekuanaoa and 
the young chiefs, he saluted them under the Hawaiian 
thus greatly irritating Lord Paulet. It is also worthy 






HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 241 

of record that Dr. Judd, the King's confidential counsellor, 
fearing the seizure of the royal archives, secretly removed 
them to the royal tomb, where, in the words of Jarves, 
" surrounded by the former sovereigns of Hawaii, and 
using the coffin of Kaahumanu for a table, for many weeks 
he nightly found an unsuspected asylum for his labors in 
behalf of the Kingdom." 

EFFECT OF FOREIGN INTERFERENCE. The 
French and English aggressions, covering a period of twelve 
years, and terminating only about three years before the 
death of Kamehameha III., led to three distinct results 
affecting the future of Hawaii. In the first place, the na- 
tion recognized its inability to cope with serious difficulties 
without the advice and aid of its foreign residents. To 
these men largely belongs the credit of preserving the 
monarchy and of maintaining the autonomy of Hawaii. 
But, in the second place, it is clear that in spite of the 
effective service rendered by these men, Hawaii demon- 
strated its inability to maintain its national existence inde- 
pendent of the protection of some strong foreign power. 
In the light of these events, Hawaiian independence was 
a figment, and men came to realize this both in Hawaii 
and in the United States. In the third place, the king 
became discouraged on account of the demands made 
upon him by foreign powers, and himself became an ad- 
vocate of annexation to the United States as a solution of 



242 HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 

r 

all governmental difficulties. During his reign his people 
; creased in number fifty per cent. This disc ;<uraging 
I ad, added to the perils threatening the national exists 
brought many to look forward to annexation as inevitable 
and to be desired. 

We have elsewhere spoken of the broad-minded 
statesmanship of Kamehameha III. in granting homes: r 
to the common people. In every way he contributed to 
the political and industrial advancement of his people, and 
deserves honor above all the sovereigns of Hawaii, not 
even excepting the great Kamehameha himself. In the 
years of his reign he was dissipated, but later he 
recovered himself and wrought wisely for his people. 
Oppressed by the decadence of the race, and the extinc- 
tion of the chiefs and the perplexities of government, he 
relapsed into the excesses of his youth and died amid the 
universal mourning of the nation. 

RETURN TO AUTOCRATIC RULE. The close of the 
brief and uneventful reign of Kamehameha IV. ushered in 
the sway of the imperious and self-willed Kamehameha V., 
the last of the Kamehameha dynasty. Writes Alexander, 
" He had inherited somewhat of the firs; K.irnehameha's 
strength of will and practical shrewdness, and had shown 
considerable administrative ability as Minister of the Inte- 
rior during the previous reign. He had been opposed to 
some of the liberal reforms of Kamehameha lIL's reign, 




PAPAIA TREE.— The tali straight stem of the Papaia runs up to a height from t\vent> 
to thirty feet. Its small, greenish white flowers are hardly noticeable amongst the green 
foliage. At the base of the long-stemmed leaf is the fruit, in all stages of develop- 
ment. The Papaia when ripe looks much like a small vellow pumpkin, with the 
flavor of this vegetable blended with that of a musk melon. 



HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 245 

believing that his countrymen were not yet fitted to enjoy 
such privileges. His reign was marked by bitter party 
contests. It was his policy to place able men who were 
in sympathy with his views at the head of affairs, and to 
give them a steady support." 

It was characteristic of the man that he began his reign 
by refusing to take the oath to support the constitution. 
That product of Kamehameha III.'s liberal statesmanship 
had never commended itself to the new king and he used 
the first opportunity to modify its provisions, hitting upon 
the device of a constitutional convention, elected by the 
people. Unwilling to ignore the suffrage rights of the 
people, perhaps, because he feared the antagonisms that 
would thus be awakened, perhaps, because he felt con- 
fident that he could employ to his own advantage the an- 
cient reverence for chiefs, he shrewdly undertook to gain 
his point at the ballot-box, and so went among the people 
electioneering, explaining and defending the changes he 
wished to make in the constitution. 

CONSTITUTION OF 1864. "The convention met 
July 7, 1864, being composed of sixteen nobles and 
twenty-seven elected delegates, presided over by the king 
in person. After a week's debate it was decided that * the 
three estates' should sit together in one chamber. The 
next question was whether the convention had the right 
to proceed to make a new constitution, which was finally 



246 HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 

decided in the affirmative. After a long discussion on the 
proposed property qualification for voters, the king's 
patience broke down, and on the 13th of August, 1864, 
he declared the constitution of i8p abrogated, and pro- 
rogued the convention." The people submitted with as 
good grace as possible, but a similar usurpation of extra- 
constitutional power, thirty years later, accomplished the 
downfall of the monarchy. Kamehameha V. set the gait 
for those who were to follow him in breaking down the 
prestige and power of the throne by resorting to reac- 
tionary and arbitrary measures. Just one week after the 
prorogation of the convention, the king, on his own 
authority, promulgated a constitution in accordance with 
his ideas. That constitution remained in force until the 
encroachments of Kalakaua, under cover of its authority, 
induced a popular uprising that resulted in the compul- 
sory promulgation of the liberal constitution of 1887. 

SEGREGATION OF LEPERS. The imperious rule 
of Kamehameha V. was not without beneficial effects. 
Leprosy first made its appearance in 1853, but it had 
spread to such an extent in 1864 that segregation became 
necessary for the public safety. It is doubtful whether 
a weaker or less autocratic king could have successfully 
put into operation the laws necessitated by rigid segrega- 
tion of the lepers. Segregation never has had popular 
approval. The opposition to it under Kalakaua made it 



HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 247 

politic for him to adopt a less vigorous policy and to ignore 
its requirements. Kamehameha V., however, was auto- 
crat enough to carry through any measure that met his 
approval. He saw the wisdom of restricting the dread 
disease and so ordered it to be done. This was a vast 
benefit to the nation, though later the political necessities 
of Kalakaua made the policy well-nigh inoperative. It is 
doubtful whether after his reign a policy of segregation 
could have been successfully instituted up to the present 
time, so unpopular has the policy always been. While we 
recognize his wisdom, and congratulate Hawaii on this act 
of personal autocracy to which he was urged by foreign 
counsel, we are not blind to the effect of that action in pit- 
ting the people against the throne, and in thus hastening 
the downfall of the monarchy. Great good was accom- 
plished by Kamehameha V.'s course in this delicate duty, 
but among his unthinking and impressionable subjects that 
course was obnoxious and counted as an active factor in 
lessening loyalty to the crown. 

ANNEXATION SENTIMENT. The action of Kame- 
hameha III. in taking steps at the close of his reign for 
the annexation of the Islands to the United States was the 
initial point in a discussion of this question throughout 
the reign of Kamehameha V. There were advocates of 
a reciprocity treaty between the two countries, but there 
was a strong sentiment favorable to annexation. There 



24 S HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 

was marked opposition both in Hawaii and in the United 
States Senate to a treaty of reciprocity on the score that it 
would operate against the annexation of the Islands, which 
was deemed more desirable. Wrote Secretary Seward to 
the American Minister at Honolulu, September 12, 1867: 
"Circumstances have transpired here which induce the 
belief that a strong interest, based upon a desire for 
annexation of the Sandwich Islands, will be active in 
opposing a ratification of the reciprocity treaty. It will be 
argued that the reciprocity will tend to hinder and defeat 
an early annexation, to which the people of the Sandwich 
Islands are supposed to be now strongly inclined. It is 
proper that you should know that a lawful and peaceful 
annexation of the islands to the United States, with the 
consent of the people of the Sandwich Islands, is deemed 
desirable by this government ; and that if the policy of 
annexation should really conflict with the policy of reci- 
procity, annexation is in every case to be preferred." The 
sentiment favorable to annexation here referred to, is 
again mentioned in Minister Pierce's letter to Secretary 
Hamilton Fish, February 17, 1873, two months after the 
death of Kamehameha V.: "Annexation of these islands 
to the United States, and a reciprocity treaty between the 
two countries are two important topics of conversation 
and warm discussion among government officials and 
foreign residents." 




FREE FERNS. — The "Tree Fern" vies with the palm in grace and beauty. 
Nothing can he more exquisite than a grove of these trees, with their long feath- 
ery fronds shading from the darkest to the most delicate green. The rough brown 
trunk is nearl\ always covered with many small varieties of ferns. 



HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 251 

The occasion of this agitation was the rapidly-grow- 
ing conviction that in the near future Hawaii must, from 
sheer inability, abandon its pretensions to an independent 
national existence and seek alliance with some strong 
nation. The last of the Kamehamehas was on the throne. 
No successor had been named by him. The order of 
high chiefs was about extinct. Changed social and indus- 
trial conditions were fast introducing new elements in the 
population. The native race was fast disappearing. The 
political evolution that had been proceeding so rapidly 
under Kamehameha III. had been brought to an abrupt 
halt by a single autocratic will, and no one knew what 
would follow his demise. There was ground for fore- 
boding that good government was about to be jeopardized. 
Even the king on his death-bed exclaimed : " What is to 
become of my poor country ! There is no one to follow 
me. Queen Emma I do not trust ; Lunalilo is a drunkard ; 
and Kalakaua is a fool." Is it surprising that intelligent 
Hawaiians as well as foreign residents of all nationalities 
have foreseen the downfall of the monarchy, and have 
been casting about for forty years for the solution of the 
problem of government that most men saw was inevi- 
tably being thrust upon the nation ? Is it surprising that 
the best citizens have uniformly recognized that an alli- 
ance with the United States was the manifest destiny of 
Hawaii ? " 



2^2 



HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 



ELECTIVE KINGS. From feudal chiefs with abso- 
lute power over the bodies of landless commoners, to 
monarchs elected by modern political methods, was cer- 
tainly a remarkable transformation in little more than a 
generation. One week after the king's death, Lunalilo, 
one of the highest of surviving chiefs, appealed to the 
people in the approaching election to vote for members of 
the Legislature who should be instructed to elect him king. 
His rival, Kalakaua, likewise issued manifestoes of the 
most obsequious tenor, for the first time injecting into the 
elections the element of race hatred. He promised, if 
elected, to repeal the poll-tax, and to put native Hawaiians 
into the government offices. " Beware of the constitution 
of 18^2 and the false teaching of the foreigners. ,, A wave 
of popular enthusiasm for "the people's king" resulted 
in the well-nigh unanimous election of Lunalilo to the 
throne, much to the discomfiture of Kalakaua, who forth- 
with sought to foster popular discontent at every oppor- 
tunity. To gain popularity, he fell in with the general 
disapproval of the segregation policy and of the proposed 
cession of Pearl River Harbor to the United States. He 
was supposed to have fomented the mutiny among the 
household troops, which Lunalilo with difficulty sup- 
pressed. After a year's brief reign, marked by popular 
agitation that greatly weakened the government and en- 
couraged political confusion, Lunalilo died and Kalakaua 



HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 253 

was duly elected his successor. It was charged, and gen- 
erally believed, that he was elected by the use of bribes. 
KALAKAUA UNPOPULAR. As soon as it was 
known that the Legislature had elected Kalakaua to the 
throne, a large mob of natives besieged the court-house 
and assaulted the members. The mob was dispersed by 
United States troops from two men-of-war in the har- 
bor, and the same troops protected the newly-elected king 
against attack from his own people for a period of eight 
days thereafter. Kalakaua was a disciple of the auto- 
cratic Kamehameha V., adopting his ideas of absolutism, 
but retaining little of the former's practical good sense. 
Kamehameha V. ruled by the very dominance of his 
strong will; Kalakaua, built on a less noble plan, was com- 
pelled to resort to chicanery to accomplish his ends, being 
unscrupulous and insincere and without moral fiber. His 
people knew his character and did not trust him. His 
election was mainly due to American influence, his com- 
petitor, Queen Emma, the widow of Kamehameha IV., 
being wholly under English influence and strongly averse 
to closer commercial relations with the United States. 
Kalakaua was known as "the foreigner's king," both 
because of American influence securing his election, and 
because of American protection until he was established 
on the throne. The problem that faced him at the outset 
was how to conciliate his subjects and win their adhe- 



254 HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 

rence. This was to be done without alienating the sup- 
port of foreign residents, at least until he had his own 
people back of him. A man of better instincts would 
have taken up this task in a patriotic spirit. Kalakaua 
was not competent to deal with the situation except in a 
way suicidal to the monarchy, and vastly injurious to his 
native subjects. 

POLITICAL EFFECT OF RECIPROCITY. The 
English residents, and Queen Emma's adherents in the 
Legislature, bitterly opposed the treaty of reciprocity with 
the United States, on the ground that it was a step toward 
annexation. One of the effects of the operation of mat 
treaty, however, was to silence the discussion of annex- 
ation and thus to remove from the political arena one 
of the vexed questions of the day. This was contin- 
gent, however, on the duration of the advantages of said 
treaty, and later, when those advantages ceased, the ques- 
tion of annexation came inevitably to the front again. 
The remarkable financial benefits of the treaty had an 
effect also in encouraging a spirit of forbearance toward 
the monarchy in courses that otherwise would have been 
less leniently dealt with. On the other hand, the rapidly- 
increasing revenues evoked a spirit of extravagance in 
public expenditures that pandered to the king's whims, 
arv\ in turn furnished him with political leverage that 
he was not slow to utilize to his own advantage. He 



HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 255 

became the agent of all political preferment. He became 
the centre of political bribery. He made it worth while for 
opponents to consult his wishes, and he was not averse to 
using public office as a reward for supporting his schemes. 
His hospitality was lavish, and he always had a large reti- 
nue of dependents who shared his good fortune. The 
effect of the reciprocity treaty, in one respect, was to fur- 
nish the king with means to overcome his unpopularity 
with his own people. The nation's prosperity was claimed 
to be due to his wise rule. Only the staunchest natives 
could withstand the seductions of his political rewards. 
HAWAII FOR HAWAIIANS1 Up to the reign of 
Kalakaua Hawaiian kings had uniformly sought the coun- 
sel and service of able foreigners in the administration of 
the government. Only one Hawaiian, Lot Kamehameha, 
afterwards Kamehameha V., had held a cabinet position. 
Hawaiian sovereigns had been unwilling to forego the ser- 
vices of foreigners in offices of responsibility and trust. 
Foreigners, born in the country, and skilled in the Hawaiian 
language, were frequently elected to the Legislature by 
Hawaiian constituencies in preference to candidates of their 
own nationality. Kalakaua set himself to work to under- 
mine the confidence of natives in foreigners, hoping thus 
to curry popularity among his own people. ■ Although he 
had put himself forward in his race with Lunalilo as the 
anti-American champion, he gladly depended on the 



256 HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 

support of foreigners during the early years of his reign. 
Later, when it served his purpose, he did not fail to ap- 
peal again to race jealousy, seeking to create it where it 
had no previous existence. The political evolution of the 
race had been rapid, and he knew how to turn its next 
development to his own advantage. Before his election 
he was little better than other young Hawaiians about 
Honolulu, and the effect of his elevation to the throne 
was to encourage a belief among Hawaiians that the time 
had come for them to administer all offices of trust and 
responsibility. He seized the opportunity to win to him- 
self all ambitious Hawaiians by starting the cry " Hawaii 
for Hawaiians." He sedulously cultivated the intensest 
race hatred, constantly feeding it by secret agencies, and 
making it the decisive factor in elections. 

REVIVAL OF HEATHENISM. The most subtle 
political influence wielded by Kalakaua was his systematic 
encouragement of hundreds of Kahunas in reviving an- 
cient superstitions. The motive was a two-fold one. He 
sought to counteract the influence of the churches, inas- 
much as the Hawaiian churches condemned his immor- 
ality and were sources of opposition to many of his 
political schemes. He further sought to throw about 
himself something of the sacred regard in which ancient 
chiefs were held. Wherever he went his train of attend- 
ants chanted obscene songs and danced lewd dances. He 




HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 



DJ 



actually schemed to make himself the head of a Hawaiian 
Church. He organized a secret society with pagan rites, 
partly to pander to his depravity, but also to serve his 
political purposes. Few Hawaiians, even in the churches, 
had the stamina to resist the sinister influences emanating 
from the palace. Kalakaua attracted young Hawaiians by 
holding out the promise of public office. He held others 
to his schemes by shameless bribery. He stifled the op- 
position of some by rewards, and of others by intimida- 
tion. So effectively did he push his advantage in reviving 
ancient superstitions, that his influence permeated every 
hamlet, and those who dared to vote against his candi- 
dates did not dare to confess they had so voted. Kala- 
kaua's conquest of his people was not immediate, but it 
was well-nigh complete. Whatever spirit of unrest and 
agitation remained among the people he successfully 
turned against foreigners, and crystalized animosities that 
have since led the monarchy into collapse. 

DEBASING THE ELECTORATE. Political prefer- 
ment, race jealousy and superstitious sentiment, could none 
of them avail to overcome the stalwart and sturdy opposi- 
tion of some Hawaiians. These men were the hope of 
the race. The spirit shown by them in resisting the king's 
blandishments and in spurning his intimidations was what 
was needed in holding the race to a wise political develop- 
ment But eventually Kalakaua triumphed over even these 



^53 HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 

men. He went personally to one country district with a 
company of soldiers, and by their votes defeated Pilipo, 
the Lion of North Kona, Kalakaua's staunchest opponent 
in the Legislature. He stationed soldiers with side-arms 
in double rows at polling-places, intimidating voters and 
pushing men out of line who were suspected of opposi- 
tion to his schemes, thus forcibly preventing their voting. 
He appointed legislators to lucrative government positions 
while they continued to retain seats in the Legislature. 
These men he employed to carry through the Legislature 
pernicious and extravagant legislation in opposition to the 
will of the people. He used the royal franking privilege 
to pass through the custom-house, free of duty, liquors 
belonging to certain firms, for which service he received 
hundreds of cases of cheap gin, which he sent to every 
voting precinct to secure the election of his candidates to 
the Legislature. In the election of 1886, out of twenty- 
eight government candidates, twenty-six were office- 
holders. Wholesale bribery was of common occurrence. 
Out of this debasement of the electorate, Kalakaua 
emerged absolute ruler, with no recourse for the people 
except in open revolution. 

THE BAUBLE BURSTS. After reigning nine years, 
Kalakaua's coronation was observed with great ceremony. 
"Three years were spent in preparation for the great 
event, and invitations were sent to all rulers and potentates 




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HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 261 

on earth to be present in person or by proxy. This cere- 
mony was boycotted by a large part of the foreign com- 
munity, as an expensive and useless pageant, intended 
to aid the king's political schemes to make himself an 
absolute monarch. The printer of the Coronotion Hula 
programme, which contained the subjects and first lines of 
songs, was prosecuted and fined by the court on account 
of their gross and incredible obscenity. " 

On the occasion of the king's fiftieth birthday, the 
legislature appropriated $i5\ooo for a jubilee celebration. 
Orders were sent out for all office-holders to bring pres- 
ents. The Prime Minister capped the sheaf by presenting 
a pair of elephant's tusks, mounted on a stand of native 
wood, bearing the inscription, " The horns of the righteous 
shall be exalted." That evening a ball was held in the 
Palace, concluding with lewd dances, which gave offense 
even to the frequenters of the Palace. 

Laying claim to "the primacy of the Pacific," he bought 
an old vessel for $20,000, expended $£0,000 in repairs, 
appointed the principal of the Reform School admiral, and 
his pupils marines, and sent her off as a man-of-war with 
an embassy to establish a protectorate over Samoa. He 
sold exemptions to lepers, permitting them to go unmo- 
lested; he leased government lands to himself, contrary 
to law ; compelled the misapplication of road money, and, 
finally, accepted a bribe of $7^,000 from a Chinaman 



262 HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 

named Aki, for an opium license, which he had already 
sold and delivered to another Chinaman, who had given 
the king a bribe of £80,000 for it. These rapidly culmi- 
nating events solidified public sentiment and brought the 
king to an abrupt halt. 

REFORM MOVEMENT. Under Kalakaua's baneful 
influence the native electorate lost its independence. It 
was utterly demoralized by the centralizing and corrupting 
influences of the Palace. It was no longer a potent factor 
in securing good government. Henceforth good govern- 
ment must depend on the active participation of intellL 
foreign residents in the privileges of citizenship. V 
few exceptions they did not possess suffrage rights. The 

:ce of the crown led to the denial of naturalization to 
respectable foreigners of long residence. Such men as 
Dole and Thurston and Smith had the suffrage by right 
of birth, and being repeatedly returned to the Legislature 
by native constituencies, had been influential in defeat- 
ing or modifying some of the most pernicious schemes 
broached in the Legislature by the king's agents. Under 
the comparatively wholesome reign of the Kamehameha 
dynasty there had arisen no occasion for foreigners to feel 
the need of suffrage rights to protect their interests. The 
course of events under Kalakaua's expensive and puerile 
administration demonstrated the need of a corrective ballot 
in the hands of intelligent men who were identified with 



HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 26 



j 



the best interests of the land, and who could not be 
cajoled nor bribed nor intimidated. A secret league was 
formed, each member pledging to equip himself with a 
Springfield rifle and sixty rounds of ammunition, and to 
hold himself in readiness to obey the summons of a 
Council of Thirteen, to whom was entrusted the direction 
of the movement. The object was to establish a republic 
by dethroning Kalakaua. The Honolulu Rifles, a volunteer 
organization, was made up almost to a man of members 
of the league. On June 30th, 1887, the patience of the 
foreign element having exhausted itself, an enthusiastic 
mass meeting passed resolutions to the effect " that the 
administration of the Hawaiian government has ceased, 
through corruption and incompetence, to perform the func- 
tions and afford the protection to personal and property 
rights for which all governments exist," and exacting or 
the king specific pledges, within twenty-four hours, of 
future good conduct on the basis of a new constitution. 
It was expected that a struggle would ensue. No one 
expected the abject surrender by the king that followed. 
He sought to pass the control of things over into the hands 
of the diplomatic representatives. They refused to com- 
ply with his request, and advised him to satisfy tne 
demands of the committee of thirteen appointed by the 
mass meeting. Twenty minutes before the expiration of 
the allotted time ne sent his representative to the com- 



264 HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 

mittee to announce his compliance with the demands of 
the citizens. Henceforth the monarchy was on probation, 
its prestige was broken. Public opinion and not mon- 
archical autocracy was hereafter to guide the government. 
Any return to absolutism would be fatal to the throne. 
Such was the spirit engendered among foreign residents, 
the parties most directly and vitally interested in compe- 
tent and honest administration. Their position was ratified 
at the subsequent election by the native population, who, 
realizing that the power of the throne was broken, returned 
representatives from every district favorable to the new 
constitution and government. 

CONSTITUTION OF 1887. The Constitution, sub- 
seauently signed by the king, made every male resident 
of Hawaiian, American or European descent, after one 
year's residence, a legal voter. Other privileges were 
conferred, distinctly enlarging the measure of Hawaiian 
citizenship, and effectually removing the throne from in- 
terference in the government. Thus the nobles, or upper 
house, were made elective by the people, instead of ap- 
pointive by the sovereign as formerly. The absolute 
power of veto was taken away. No government official 
was eligible as a noble or representative, and no member 
of the Legislature could be appointed to any office of 
trust or emolument during the term for which he was 
elected. The king was retained as a figure-head, while 



HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 267 

the resuorr/bilitv for the government was placed whoJIv 
on a Cabinet, subject to removal only by vote of trie 
Legislature, elected by the people. 

Emerging thus from an era of bombastic display and 
political corruption and gross immorality, for six years 
Hawaii had a wise administration of affairs. The pubiic 
revenue was turned into channels of public improvement. 
The harbor was deepened, good roads were built, new 
lands were opened for settlement, and all departments of 
the government felt the stimulus of a wise and energetic 
administration. The Australian ballot was adopted, use- 
less offices were abolished, the segregation of lepers was 
rigidly enforced, the method of collecting the taxes was 
systematized and made effective, and honest elections 
were secured. What Hawaiians could not secure Tor 
themselves, foreign residents, under stress of royal aggres- 
sion, secured for themselves and for Hawaiians as well. 
This foreign population, that has been such a factor in 
the political evolution of Hawaii, has never taken united 
action except in behalf of good government. It has been 
moderate in its demands, humane in its action, patient 
with the frailties of an effete monarchy, and uniformly 
considerate of the political rights of native Hawaiians. 

QUEEN LILIUOKALANI. The death of Kalakaua in 
1 89 1 brought Liliuokalani to the throne. It was expected 
she might follow the arbitrary example of Kamehameha V. 



268 HAWAIIAN MONARCHY. 

and refuse to take the oath to support the Constitution. 
It was well-known that she hated that document and that 
sne was a believer in the absolute right of kings. Had 
sne refused, a republic would have been established at 
once. The attitude of the public mind was one of dis- 
trust, but of willingness to accord her a trial. Public sen- 
timent was essentially voiced in the general conviction, 
" She must keep inside her constitutional limits, or go ! " 
When she put her foot on the Constitution January 14, 
1893, and asserted her purpose to arbitrarily promulgate 
a new one, she dramatically caused the collapse. 

NATURAL SEQUENCE OF EVENTS. The down- 

« 

fall of the Hawaiian Monarchy was in the natural sequence 
ot events, and could have been foretold with reasonaole 
certainty by any one at all acquainted with the forces at 
work in that little nation. The natural growth was toward 
the largest enjoyment of political rights by the people, ana 
the reasonable accommodation of the throne to the de- 
mands of this progressive movement. 

But the monarchy grew rigid. It threw itself across the 
pathway. It sought to turn the wheels backward, and 

grew autocratic and arbitrary. With an almost insane 

1 
temerity, it assumed the role of arbiter, ruled the other 

party out of court, pronounced judgment, and miseraoiy 

perished at its own hands. 



HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

Appointed by President Harrison United States Minis- 
ter to the Hawaiian Islands, John L Stevens for the first 
time saw those beautiful emeralds of the North Pacific in 
September, 1889, when he entered on his official duties 
at Honolulu. He had not been long at the Hawaiian 
capital when he perceived how thoroughly an American 
city it is, how strong is American sympathy and how pre- 
dominating are American interests and opinions in all the 
Islands of the Hawaiian group. More than one year of 
careful study of the then existing complex facts Mr. 
Stevens found necessary to a correct understanding of 
the moral, commercial and political state of the Islands. 
Though he had had much previous experience and obser- 
vation among the nations of three continents, he found a 
condition of things in Honolulu unlike that he had ever 
known at any other national capital. He found an intel- 
ligent body of citizens, of European and American origin, 
sharing the good-will of many native Hawaiians, support- 
ing a semi-barbaric monarchy resting on no solid or nor- 

269 



2jo HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 

mal foundation, dead in everything but its vices, coarsely 
luxuriant in its tastes and wishes, spreading social and 
political demoralization throughout the Islands. This 
semi-heathen and spurious government mechanism, called 
the Hawaiian Monarchy, was being chiefly supported by 
the taxes and toleration of those who could have no sin- 
cere loyalty to it, and who knew that it returned to the 
Islands nothing for the money it annually squandered on 
worse than useless expenditures. That such a barbaric 
and absurd counterfeit in the name of government and 
law as the Hawaiian monarchy had finally become in 
practice, was so long endured is a striking proof of the 
self-control and forbearance of the responsible citizens of 
the Islands. Suffice it to say, that such an abomination 
in the name of government, or for any other pretense or 
purpose, would not be allowed to exist sixty days in any 
of our American cities or States. Only very exceptional 
circumstances caused the responsible citizens and princi- 
pal tax-payers of the Islands so long to maintain this 
worse than useless monarchy. One year's careful obser- 
vation of the existing state of things brought me to the 
firm belief that it could not continue. The death of King 
Kalakaua, in 1890, and the accession of his sister to the 
little throne, revealed many facts and circumstances which 
showed how utterly vicious and demoralizing the mon- 
archy had become. Bad as had been the courtiers and 
favorite companions and advisers of this semi-barbaric 




CAPTAIN GILBERT C. WILTSE was born in New York in 1838. During 
the Civil War he took part in engagements in Hampden Roads, between the 
"Congress" and *' Merrimac," and was afterward in the engagement of the 
monitors at Fort Sumter. Captain Wiltse commanded the United States Ship 
" Boston," stationed at I lonolulu during the recent revolution. 



HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 273 

king, those whom his sister Liliuokalani immediately drew 
around her were certainly no better. The death of her 
brother, followed by that of her lawful husband, did not 
prevent her from appointing to the chief executive office 
of the Islands the Tahitian half-white, C. B. Wilson, who 
had long sustained discreditable relations to her, and 
whom she now installed in her palace, though he had 
a lawfully married wife, and the royal chamberlain paid 
out of the government treasury was always at his post 
to discharge palace duties. Even this astounding exhibi- 
tion of shame and the unworthy character of most of 
her white retainers and confidants the Hawaiian public 
endured without overt acts of protest and indignation. 

The biennial Legislature assembled in May, 1892. That 
body very soon asserted its constitutional prerogative in 
voting out a ministry that had consented to the mal- 
administration of the Queen and her palace favorite, who 
exercised dictatorial powers and rioted in official police 
corruption. Instead of appointing ministers possessing 
the confidence of the Legislative majority and of the 
business men of the Islands, Liliuokalani continued to 
select those of her own type of character, especially those 
whom she knew would retain her palace favorite in 
power. Three successive ministers of this description, 
in the course of a few weeks, were voted out by the 
Legislature, with a warm approval of all the best men of 



274 HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 

the Islands. At last the Queen appeared to yield to the 
pressure of public opinion, and consented to the appoint- 
ment of four responsible men— Peter C. Jones, W. L. 
Wilcox, Mark P. Robinson and Cecil Brown — three of 
them persons of wealth, all of them of good financial 
standing, fully sharing the public confidence. These gen- 
tlemen took their official places with reluctance and only 
from a sense of duty to the country. Known as the 
Wilcox-Jones Ministry, it was believed that they would 
safely carry the country through the following eighteen 
months, to the election and assemblage of the next Legis- 
lature. Fully sharing this belief, the United States Minister 
and Naval Commander left Honolulu January 4, 1893, in 
the United States cruiser " Boston," for Hilo and the Vol- 
cano, the distance of nearly three hundred miles. It was 
the first time for many months Mr. Stevens had felt it safe 
for the United States Minister and Naval Commander to 
be away from the Hawaiian capital. They were absent 
ten days. When they arrived in the harbor of Honolulu 
on their return from Hilo, in the forenoon of January 14th, 
there came to them the startling news that the Queen 
and the white adventurers who surrounded her, had, by 
intrigue and bribery, carried the lottery and opium bills 
through the Legislature, had forced out the Wilcox- 
Jones Ministry, had appointed in their places four of her 
palace retainers, two of whom the Legislature and the 



HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 275 

responsible public had recently and repeatedly rejected, 
headed by the man who had carried the lottery and opium 
bills through the Legislature. In spite of numerous peti- 
tions and protests from all the Islands, both of whites and 
native Hawaiians, and the earnest remonstrance of the 
Chambers of Commerce and the principal financial men 
of the country, the Queen immediately signed the iniqui- 
tous bills, though she had previously given express implied 
pledges to the contrary. Both she and the adventurers 
who surrounded her, expected thus to obtain the money to 
carry on the government, by making Honolulu a fortress 
of lottery gamblers and opium smugglers amid the ocean, 
from which they could, by every mail steamer to the 
United States, send out the poison billets of chance, by 
which to rob the American people of their millions of 
money — a method of gaining silver and gold as wicked 
and audacious as that of the freebooters who once estab- 
lished themselves in the West Indian seas and made 
piratical forays on American commerce. But even this 
was not enough for the semi-barbaric Queen and the 
adventurers around her. To securely fortify themselves 
in their schemes of usurpation and robbery they must 
have a new Constitution. They were afraid the Supreme 
Court would decide their lottery bill unconstitutional. The 
Supreme Court therefore must be reconstructed so that the 
Queen could reappoint the judges, giving the final appeal to 



276 HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 

the Queen herself. The new Constitution was to be pro- 
claimed in a way that the existing Constitution expressly 
prohibits. By the Constitution which Liliuokalani had 
sworn to maintain, that document could be amended or 
changed only in one way, which was by the vote of two 
successive Legislatures. Her four new ministers were in 
the plot 

While the " Boston " was coming into the harbor of 
Honolulu, on the forenoon of January 14th, a crowd of the 
less responsible natives, especially those of the hoodlum 
elements of Honolulu, at the call of the Queen and her 
immediate supporters, were gathering in the Palace 
grounds. The Legislature was to be prorogued at twelve 
M. of that day. The revolutionary edict of Hawaii's 
misguided sovereign was ready to be proclaimed, rumors 
of which had already reached the public ear. The storm 
of public indignation began to gather. A few minutes 
before the appointed hour for the coup d'etat, immediately 
after the arrival of the United States Minister at the lega- 
tion from the " Boston," he was urged to go at once to 
the English Minister to ask him to accompany the Ameri- 
can Minister to the Queen and try to dissuade her from 
her revolutionary design. Mr. Stevens promptly sought to 
comply with this request, went immediately to the English 
Minister, who was ready to co-operate with the United 
States Minister, if there were any possibility of effecting 



HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 277 

any good. Minister Stevens and Minister Wodehouse 
went immediately to the foreign office to seek access to 
the Queen in the customary manner. It was then nearly 
twelve o'clock, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs was not 
in his office. The hour of proroguing had arrived. That 
ceremony concluded, the Queen went immediately to the 
Palace, around which the mob and her retainers were 
gathering. It was thus too late for the American and 
English Ministers even to attempt to reason with the mis- 
guided woman who had already launched the revolution, 
which could not be arrested, though her cowardly min- 
isters of the lottery gang, who had just been appointed 
by her to aid her in her revolutionary designs, became 
alarmed and drew back. She scorned their cowardice 
and pushed on to her doom. After four hours of bitter 
and stormy wrangling in and outside of her Palace her 
attempted coup d'etat proved abortive, though she went 
upon the balcony and promised the excited crowd that 
she would renew her revolutionary scheme at a future 
time. Saturday night of January 14th told every intelli- 
gent man in Honolulu that the Hawaiian monarchy was 
at an end — that the responsible persons of the Islands, 
the property-holders and the friends of law and order, 
must thereafter take charge of public affairs and establish 
a government in place of the interregnum which the fallen 
Queen had created. The great mass meeting of January 



278 HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 

i6:h, worthy of the best American towns, of the best 
American days, was held. It was made up of the best 
and chief men of the country — the owners of property, 
the professional and educated citizens, merchants, bankers, 
clerks, mechanics, teachers, clergymen. This assemblage 
was a unit in opinion and purpose. It was stirred by a 
common sentiment, the love of country and the desire for 
public order and public security. It took its measures 
wisely and prudently. Unanimously and with great 
enthusiasm it passed the following resolutions : — 

"i. Whereas Her Majesty Liliuokalani, acting in conjunction 

certain other persons, has illegally and unconstitutionally and 

against the advice and consent of the lawful executive officers of the 

Government, attempted to abrogate the existing constitution and 

proclaim a new one in subversion of the rights of the people ; 

" 2. And whereas such attempt has been accompanied by thr^ 
of violence and bloodshed and a display of armed force, and such 
attempts and acts and threats are revolutionary and treasona: 
character ; 

" 3. And whereas H sty's cabinet have informed her that 

such contemplated action was unlawful and would lead to bloodshed 
and riot, and have implored and demanded of her to desist from and 
renounce such proposed action ; 

M 4. And whereas such advice has been in vain, and Her Majesty 
has in a public speech announced that she was desirous and : 
to promulgate such constitution, the same being now ready for such 
:se, and that the only reason why :: was not now promulgated 
..use she had mc ::ed obstacles and that a 

fitting opportunity in the future must be awaited for the consumma- 
tion of such obje ich would be within a few days ; 



HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 279 

" 5. And whereas at a public meeting of citizens held in Hono- 
lulu on the 14th day of January instant, a committee of thirteen, 
to be known as the * Committee of Public Safety ' was appointed to 
consider the situation and to devise ways and means for the mainten- 
ance of the public peace and safety and the preservation of life and 
property ; 

"6. And whereas such committee has recommended the calling 
of this mass meeting of citizens to protest against and condemn such 
action and has this day presented a report to such meeting denounc- 
ing the action of the Queen and her supporters as being unlawful, 
unwarranted, in derogation of the rights of the people, endangering 
the peace of the community, and tending to excite riot and cause 
the loss of life and destruction of property ; 

"Now, therefore, we, the citizens of Honolulu, of all nationalities 
and regardless of political party affiliations, do hereby condemn and 
denounce the action of the Queen and her supporters ; 

"And we do hereby ratify the appointment and indorse the 
action taken and report made by the said Committee of Safety ; and 
we do hereby further empower such committee to further consider 
the situation and further devise such ways and means as may be 
necessary to secure the permanent maintenance of law and order 
and the protection of life, liberty, and property in Hawaii. " 

Its Committee of Public Safety requested the Minister 
of the United States to land the men of the " Boston, " lest 
riot and incendiarism might burst out in the night, for no 
reliable police force longer existed, and whatever there 
was of this force was now in the control of the usurpers 
and the lottery gamblers, who had initiated the revolution. 
During the intervening hours of Saturday night, Sunday 
and Monday there was an intense feeling and great anxiety 



2So HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 

as to what might take place, and the American Minister 
had reached the conclusion that the gravity of the situation 
required him, in conformity to the rules and instructions 
of the Legation, to land the naval force, and he would 
have done so had not the Committee of Public Safety 
made the request. Monday afternoon of January 16th, he 
went on board the " Boston," bearing the following note to 
Captain Wiltse : — 

"United States Legation, January 16, 1893. 

" In view of the existing critical circumstances in Honolulu, 

indicating an inadequate legal force, I request you to land marines 

and sailors from the ship under your command for the protection 

of the United States Legation and the United States Consulate, 

and to secure the safety of American life and property. 

" John L. Stevens. 
"To Captain Wiltse, U. S. N." 

The order of Captain Wiltse to Lieutenant-Commander Swin- 
burne, who commanded the naval battalion on shore, read as fol- 
lows, under the same date : — 

"You will take the command of the battalion, and land in Hono- 
lulu for the purpose of protecting our Legation and the lives and 
property of American citizens, and to assist in the preservation of 
public order. Great prudence must be exercised by both officers 
and men, and no action taken that is not fully warranted by the 
condition of affairs and by the conduct of those who may be inimical 
to the treaty rights of American citizens You will inform me at the 
earliest practical moment of any change in the situation." 

It will be observed that Captain Wiltse's order goes 
farther than the note of Mr. Stevens, making the 



HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 283 

preservation of public order the duty of the naval force, 
in case of necessity, of which the Minister and Naval 
Commander must be the judge. This is in exact accord- 
ance with the terms of the dispatch of Secretary Bayard 
to Minister Merrill, at a former revolutionary period in 
Hawaiian affairs. The terms of the Bayard dispatch is as 
follows : — 

"United States Department of State, 
"Washington, July 12, 1887. 
******* 

" In the absence of any detailed information from you of the 
late disorders in the domestic control of Hawaii and the changes 
which have taken place in the official corps of that government, I 
am not able to give you other than general instructions, which 
may be communicated in substance to the commander of the vessel 
or vessels of this government in the waters of Hawaii, with whom 
you will freely confer, in order that such prompt and efficient action 
may be taken as the circumstances may make necessary. 

" While we abstain from interference with the domestic affairs 
of Hawaii, in accordance with the policy and practice of this Gov- 
ernment, yet, obstruction to the channels of legitimate commerce 
under existing laws must not be allowed, and American citizens in 
Hawaii must be protected in their persons and property, by the repre- 
sentative of their country's law and power, and no internal discord 
must be suffered to impair them. 

"Your own aid and council, as well as the assistance of the 
officers of the Government vessels, if found necessary, will therefore 
be promptly afforded to promote the reign of law and respect for 
orderly government in Hawaii. 

11 T. F. Bayard, Secretary of State." 



2S 4 HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

Under the diplomatic and naval rules so plain and 
imperative, the United States Minister and the Naval 
Commander would have shamefully ignored their duty 
had they not landed the men of the " Boston," for the 
security of American life and property, even had the citi- 
zens of Honolulu and the Committee of Public Safety not 
requested them to do so. As American representatives, 
five thousand miles from their government, they could not 
have escaped their responsibilities, even had they desired 
to do so. Fortunately the commander of the " Boston" 
and those under his command had no desire to shirk their 
duty. They appreciated the obligations of American pa- 
triotism and the honor of the American navy. The 
allurements of a semi-barbaric court and the various 
seductive efforts of the palace adventurers to conceal from 
them the real state of things, had not blinded their eyes to 
the condition of affairs in Honolulu. On shore, in perfect 
order, they stepped not an inch from the line of duty. 
They never lifted a finger in aid of the fallen monarchy or 
the rising provisional government. The former sought 
their aid, but neither the monarchists nor the supporters 
of the provisional government had the least assistance of 
force by Captain Wiltse and those under his command. 
All assertion to the contrary, by whomsoever uttered, are 
audacious falsehoods without a semblance of truth. All 
the official notes of Mr. Stevens and the written orders of 



HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 285 

Captain Wiltse, as well as the testimony of the officers 
under his command, completely attest the truth of the 
above statement. To the same import is the following 
communication addressed to Minister Stevens by the fallen 
Queen, signed by herself and by the four ministers who 
had been closely identified with her in her revolutionary 
proceedings : — 

" The assurance conveyed by a royal proclamation by myself 
and ministers yesterday having been received by my native subjects 
and by them ratified at a mass meeting, was received in a different 
spirit by the meeting representing the foreign population and inter- 
ests in my kingdom. It is now my desire to give to Your Excel- 
lency, as the diplomatic representative of the United States of 
America at my court, the solemn assurance that the present consti- 
tution will be upheld and maintained by me and my ministers and 
no changes will be made except by the method therein provided. I 
desire to express to Your Excellency this assurance in the spirit of 
that friendship which has ever existed between my kingdom and 
that of the Government of the United States of America, and which 

I trust will long continue. 

" LlLIUOKALANI, R. 

" Samuel Parker, Minister of Foreign Affairs. 
"Wm. H. CORNELL, Minister of Finance. 
"JOHN. F. COLBURN, Minister of Interior. 
"A. P. PETERSON, Attorney General. 

"Iolani Palace, Honolulu, January 17, 1893." 

This earnestly pleading document from the fallen mon- 
arch and the terror-stricken lottery gang came to the 
American Minister more than twenty hours after the men 



286 HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 

of the " Boston " had landed. This plainly implies that 
the fallen Liliuokalani and her confidants then knew, as 
they could not have failed to know, that Minister Stevens 
and the American Naval Commander had not taken part 
in her overthrow, which had already been accomplished. 
An hour later the fallen ministers went to the United 
States Legation and urged on Mr. Stevens the inquiry, if 
he could not use the United States' force to sustain the 
Queen. The answer of Minister Stevens was that the 
United States' soldiers were on shore for a pacific purpose, 
to protect American life and pr perty, and could not take 
sides in aid of a fallen monarch, nor with those who were 
then masters of the situation and were creating a new 
government. Of like import as to the non-intervention of 
the United States force, is the testimony of hundreds of 
the chief citizens of Honolulu, including judges, bankers, 
lawyers, college professors, clergymen, and others, who 
knew all the facts and circumstances relative to the fall of 
the Hawaiian monarchy and the establishment of the 
provisional government. Early in the afternoon of Janu- 
ary 17th, the Committee of Public Safety, having taken 
possession of the government building, issued the follow- 
proclamation : — 

PROCLAMATION. In its earlier history Hawaii possessed a 
Constitutional Government honestly and economically administered 
in the public interest. 




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HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 289 

The Crown called to its assistance as advisers able, honest and 
conservative men whose integrity is unquestioned even by their 
political opponents. 

The stability of the Government was assured ; armed resistance 
and revolution unthought of, popular rights were respected and the 
privileges of the subject from time to time increased, and the pre- 
rogatives of the Sovereign diminished by the voluntary acts of the 
successive kings. 

With very few exceptions this state of affairs continued until the 
expiration of the first few years of the reign of His late Majesty 
Kalakaua. At this time a change was discernible in the spirit 
animating the chief executive and in the influences surrounding the 
throne. A steadily increasing disposition was manifested on the 
part of the King, to extend the Royal prerogatives ; to favor adven* 
turers and persons of no character or standing in the community ; 
to encroach upon the rights and privileges of the people by steadily 
increasing corruption of electors, and by means of the power and 
influence of office-holders and other corrupt means to illegitimately 
influence the elections, resulting in the final absolute control of not 
only the executive and legislative, but to a certain extent the 
judicial, departments of the government, in the interest of absolutism. 

This finally resulted in the revulsion of feeling and popular up- 
rising of 1887, which wrested from the King a large portion of his 
ill-gotten powers. 

The leaders of this movement were not seeking personal aggran- 
disement, political power or the suppression of the native govern- 
ment. If this had been their object it could easily have been 
accomplished, for they had the absolute control of the situation. 

Their object was to secure responsible government through a 
representative Cabinet, supported by and responsible to the people's 
elected representatives. A clause to this effect was inserted in the 
Constitution and subsequently enacted by law by the Legislature, 
specifically covering the ground that, in all matters concerning the 



2 9 o HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION 

State the Sovereign was to act by and with the advice of the Cabi- 
net and only by and with such advice. 

The King willingly agreed to such proposition, expressed regret 
for the past, and volunteered promises for the future. 

Almost from the date of such agreement and promises, up to the 
time of his death, the history of the Government has been a con- 
tinual struggle between the King on the one hand and the Cabinet 
and the Legislature on the other, the former constantly endeavor- 
ing by every available form of influence and evasion to ignore his 
promises and agreements and regain his lost powers. 

This conflict upon several occasions came to a crisis, followed 
each time by a submission on the part of His Majesty, by renewed 
expressions of regret and promises, to abide by the constitutional 
and legal restrictions in the future. In each instance such promise 
was kept until a further opportunity presented itself, when the 
conflict was renewed in defiance and regardless of all previous 
pledges. 

Upon the accession of Her Majesty Liliuokalani, for a brief 
period th hope prevailed that new policy would be adopted. This 
hope was soon blasted by her immediately entering into conflict 
with the existing Cabinet, who held office with the approval of a 
large majority of the Legislature, resulting in the triumph of the 
Queen and the removal of the Cabinet. The appointment of a new 
Cabinet subservient to her wishes and their continuance in office 
until a recent date gave no opportunity for further indication of the 
policy which would be pursued by Her Majesty until the opening of 
the Legislature in May of 1892. 

The recent history of that session has shown a stubborn deter- 
mination on the part of Her Majesty to follow the tactics of her late 
brother and in all possible ways to secure an extension of the royal 
prerogatives and an abridgment of popular rights. 

During the latter part of the session the Legislature was replete 
with corruption ; bribery and other illegitimate influences were 






HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 291 

openly utilized to secure the desired end, resulting in the final 
complete overthrow of all opposition and the inauguration of a Cabi- 
net arbitrarily selected by Her Majesty in complete defiance of 
constitutional principles and popular representation. 

Notwithstanding such result the defeated party peacefully sub- 
mitted to the situation. 

Not content with her victory Her Majesty proceeded on the. last 
day of the session to arbitrarily arrogate to herself the right to pro- 
mulgate a new Constitution, which proposed, among other things, to 
disfranchise over one-fourth of the voters and the owners of nine- 
tenths of the private property of the kingdom ; to abolish the elected 
upper house of the legislature and to substitute in place thereof an 
appointive one, to be appointed by the Sovereign. 

The detailed history of this attempt and the succeeding events 
in connection therewith is given in the report of the Committee of 
Public Safety to the citizens of Honolulu, and the resolution adopted 
at the mass meeting held on the 16th instant, the correctness of 
which report and the propriety of which resolution is hereby specifi- 
cally affirmed. 

, The constitutional evolution indicated has slowly and steadily, 
though reluctantly and regretfully, convinced an overwhelming ma- 
jority of the conservative and responsible members of the commu- 
nity that independent, constitutional, representative and responsible 
government, able to protect itself from revolutionary uprisings and 
royal aggression, is no longer possible in Hawaii under the existing 
system of government. 

Five uprisings or conspiracies against the Government have 
occurred within five years and seven months. It is firmly believed 
that the culminating revolutionary attempt of last Saturday will, 
unless radical measures are taken, wreck our already damaged credit 
abroad and precipitate to final ruin our already over-strained financial 
condition ; and the guarantee of protection to life, liberty and property 
will steadily decrease and the political situation rapidly grow worse 



292 HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 

In this belief, and also in the firm belief that the action hereby 
taken is and will be for the best personal, political and property 
interests of every citizen of the land — 

We, citizens and residents of the Hawaiian Islands, organized 
and acting for the public safety and the common good, hereby pro- 
claim as follows : — 

(i) The Hawaiian monarchical system of government is hereby 
abrogated. 

(2) A provisional government for the control and management of 
public affairs and the protection of the public peace is hereby estab- 
lished, to exist until terms of union with the United States of Amer- 
ica have been negotiated and agreed upon. 

(3) Such provisional government shall consist of an executive 
council of four members, who are hereby declared to be Sanford 
B. Dole, James A. King, Peter C. Jones, William O. Smith, who shall 
administer the executive departments of the government, the first- 
named acting as president and chairman of such council and admin- 
istering the department of foreign affairs, and the others severally 
administering the departments of interior, finance and attorney-gen- 
eral, respectively, in the order in which they are above enumerated, 
according to existing Hawaiian law as far as may be consistent with 
this proclamation ; and also of an advisory council, which shall con- 
sist of fourteen members, who are hereby declared to be S. M. 
Damon, L. A. Thurston, J. Emmeluth, J. A. McCandless, F. W. 
McChesney, W. R. Castle, W. C. Wilder, A. Brown, J. F. Morgan, 
H. Waterhouse, E. D. Tenney, F. Wilhelm, W. G. Ashley, C. Bolte. 
Such advisory council shall also have general legislative authority. 

Such executive and advisory council shall, acting jointly, have 
power to remove any member of either council and to fill such or 
any other vacancy. 

(4) All officers under the existing government are hereby 
requested to continue to exercise their functions and perform the 




SANFORD BALLARD DOLE, President of the Provisional Government of 
Hawaii, is forty-nine years of age ; born in Honolulu of American parentage. 
He was educated at Oahu College in Honolulu, and at Williams College in the 
United States. He studied law in Boston ; was admitted to the A^assachusetts 
bar, soon afterwards returning to Honolulu, where he became one of the leading 
lawyers. 



HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 295 

duties of their respective offices, with the exception of the following 
named persons : Queen Liliuokalani ; Charles B. Wilson, Marshal 
Samuel Parker, Minister of Foreign Affairs ; W. H. Cornwell, Min 
ister of Finance ; John F. Colburn, Minister of the Interior ; Arthu: 
P. Peterson, Attorney-General, who are hereby removed from office 
(5) All Hawaiian laws and constitutional principles not incon 
sistent herewith shall continue in force until further order of the 
executive and advisory councils. 

Henry E. Cooper, Andrew Brown, 

J. A. McCandless, Theodore F. Lansing, 

JOHN EMMELUTH, C. BOLTE, 

Ed. Suhr, Henry Waterhouse, 

W. C. Wilder, F. W. McChseney, 

William O. Smith. 



[Inclosure 2 in No. 79.I 

Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands, January 17, 1893. 

SIR : — The undersigned, members of the Executive and Advisory 
Councils of the Provisional Government this day established in 
Hawaii, hereby state to you that for the reasons set forth in the 
proclamation this day issued, a copy of which is herewith inclosed 
for your consideration, the Hawaiian monarchy has been abrogated 
and a Provisional Government established in accordance with the 
said above-mentioned proclamation. 

Such Provisional Government has been proclaimed, is now in 
possession of the Government Departmental buildings, the archives 
and the treasury, and is in control of the city. We hereby request 
that you will, on behalf the United States of America, recognize it 
as the existing de facto Government of the Hawaiian Islands, and 
afford to it the moral support of your Government, and, if neces- 



296 HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 

sary, the support of American troops to assist in preserving the 
public peace. 

We have the honor to remain your obedient servants, 

Sanford B. Dole, J. A. King, 

P. C. Jones, William O. Smith, 

S. M. Dawson, John Emmeluth, 

F. W. McChesney, W. C. Wilder, 

J. A. McCandless, Andrew Brown, 

Jas. F. Morgan, Henry Waterhouse, 

E. D. TENNEY, F. J. WlLHELM, 

W. G. ASHLEY, C. BOLTE. 

His Excellency JOHN L. STEVENS, 

United States Minister. 

The Hawaiian monarchy having practically ceased to 
exist more than two days before, the provisional govern- 
ment being duly constituted, in full possession of the 
Hawaiian capital and complete master of the political and 
military situation, it was acknowledged by the American 
Minister as the de facto government of the Hawaiian Isl- 
ands, in accordance of the uniform precedents of the 
United States Government and of international practice 
throughout the world. The other foreign representatives, 
familiar with all the facts and circumstances regarding the 
origin of the provisional government, promptly gave it a 
de facto acknowledgment very soon after the United 
States Minister had done so. 

THE RAISING OF THE UNITED STATES FLAG. 
The raising of the United States flag over the government 






HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 297 

building took place two weeks later, and on that transac- 
tion there is some misapprehension, which time and the 
truth of history will fully correct. It was not done hastily 
nor thoughtlessly. It was done with all the serious sense 
of responsibility that the United States Minister and Cap- 
tain Wiltse could command. Captain Wiltse and the 
American Minister were in complete accord February first. 
Captain Wiltse knew the situation thoroughly. The pro- 
visional government made the request that the United 
States flag be raised over the government building, and 
these were its reasons: It had been created only two 
weeks before. There were no trained troops on the 
Island available for its use. Many of the men in official 
places on the different islands, selected under the mon- 
archy, often from palace favorites, had not been removed, 
and their future conduct was uncertain. Men from the 
business circles and occupations, from the stores, banks, 
offices, and workshops, had been on guard day and night 
for two weeks, and business was suffering from their 
absence. There had not been time to create an efficient 
police, nor to organize and drill a small military force, 
which the public situation required. In a city of twenty- 
four thousand people, of various nationalities, it was rea- 
sonable to suppose there might be some elements of 
disorder. On the plantations not far off and in the city 
itself there were believed to be many Japanese, who had 



2 9 S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 

served in their own army before they came to Hawaii. It 
was feared that the fallen Liliuokalani and the lottery and 
opium rings around her would obtain the assistance of the 
Japanese and other foreigners to restore her to the throne, 
she compensating them by granting them the right of 
suffrage and other favors which the Queen in her des- 
peration readily would have promised to grant. Fear and 
panic began to gain headway in the city. A riot was 
feared. Million: of American property, and life and order 
were imperilled. !n these circumstances the only sure 
hope of safety was in the American naval force at hand. 
Should the American representative run the risk of an- 
archy and bloodshed when it was certain he would be 
held rigidly responsible if catastrophe and calamity should 
come? It was this pressure of necessity which com- 
pelled the American representative to act with promptness. 
These were the reasons which led the provisional govern- 
ment to ask American assistance. But there were other 
potential reasons which pressed upon the American Minis- 
ter. For more than half a century the United States 
Government had claimed rights and interests in the Ha- 
waiian Islands superior to those of any other foreign 
nations. Repeatedly there has been attempts to induce 
the American government to agree to dual or tripartite 
responsibilities at Honolulu. John M. Clayton, Secretary 
of State under President Taylor, repelled this forty-four 



HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 299 

years ago, and such has been United States policy since. 
It was well known to Minister Stevens that this idea of 
joint action and responsibility had not been given up, but 
was still insisted on by one, if not two, foreign representa- 
tives at Honolulu. There was then one Japanese war 
vessel in the harbor, and another powerful ironclad, larger 
than the " Boston," had been telegraphed for at the time 
when the steamer Claudine sailed with the Hawaiian 
Commissioners on their way to Washington. An English 
war ship was expected soon to arrive The American 
Minister had reasons to think, and the provisional govern- 
ment had reasons to fear, that these foreign representatives 
would insist on the same right to land their naval forces 
at Honolulu which the United States officials had exercised. 
The American Minister was therefore compelled to 
decide whether he would risk the danger of a practical 
abandonment of the long-maintained American policy of 
non-joint responsibility in Hawaiian affairs. To thus sur- 
render in practice what the United States had long claimed, 
he well knew would prove him unfit to be an American 
representative. Here were difficulties which could be 
effectively and conclusively overcome only in one way, 
that was by raising the flag over the government build- 
ings, a symbol of United States superior right to protect 
the Hawaiian government and Hawaiian sovereignty. 
This would not only prevent all the danger of riot and 



5oo HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 

bloodshed, but would shut out the landing of any other 
than the naval American force. Captain Wiltse saw this 
as soon and as clearly as did Minister Stevens. With an 
American heart loyal to the core, conscientious, firm, self- 
possessed, fully aware of the grave responsibility of the 
act, he was prompt to do his duty. The officers under 
his command were as intelligent and loyal as their own 
veteran commander. The following are the words read 
by Lieutenant Rush of the " Boston," on the steps of the 
government building simultaneously with raising the flag, 
which was immediately published by posters and in the 
newspapers ; — 

"TO THE HAWAIIAN PEOPLE. At the request of the Pro- 
visional Government of the Hawaiian Islands, I hereby, in the name 
of the United States of America, assume protection of the Hawaiian 
Islands for the protection of life and property, and occupation of 
public buildings and Hawaiian soil, so far as may be necessary for 
the purpose specified, but not interfering with the administration of 
public affairs by the Provisional Government. 

"This action is taken pending and subject to negotiations at 
Washington. 

"John L. Stevens, 

"Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of the 
United States. 

"United States Legation, Feb. i, 1893. 

" Approved and executed by 

" G. C. Wiltse, Captain U. S. N., 
" Commanding the United States ship ' Boston.' " 



HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 301 

It will be observed that the plain intent of this little 
document is non-interference with the sovereignty and 
internal affairs of Hawaii — that it claimed to establish only 
a qualified and very limited protectorate, and instead of 
infringing on the sovereignty of the country, it was a 
response to the only government o.f the Island to aid in 
maintaining Hawaiian sovereignty. On the arrival of the 
information at Washington of this action of the American 
representatives, Secretary Foster sent a dispatch, of con- 
siderable length, defining how far the limited protectorate 
at Honolulu could go, and the conclusion of that dispatch 
of the Secretary of State was precisely what President Dole 
and Minister Stevens understood and intended when the 
flag was raised. During the entire period of seventy-five 
days the flag was up, there was complete non-intervention 
by the American officials in the political and internal affairs 
of Hawaii. The salutary effect of thus raising the flag 
of the United States for "the preservation of public order," 
according to the terms of Secretary Bayard's dispatch of 
July, 1887, was immediate and remarkable. Quiet, confi- 
dence, perfect order at once took the place of panic, fear 
and distrust. Language can not adequately express the 
joyful feelings of the large American colony and of all the 
better elements of the other nationalities. All, save a 
few sympathizers with our national rivals, looked on 
the American flag floating in those genial skies with 



3 02 HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 

profound respect. None more so than many native 
Hawaiians. 

The essential objects to be accomplished by raising the 
flag of the United States were gained during the two and 
one-half months its starry folds were before the people 
of Hawaii. The Provisional Government had secured the 
necessary time to organize an efficient police and military 
force, to substitute reliable officials in place of the unreliable, 
and to consolidate the new government with the approval 
of the responsible men of all the Islands. Hawaii now 
has the best government she has ever had, administered 
by men of intelligence, education and character, and as 
thoroughly American in sympathy and interest as we have 
at the head of any of our American States and territories. 
That government and those back of it — nearly all the 
responsible and best citizens of the Islands — ask for the 
annexation of Hawaii as a territory of the United States. 
This is desired because it is believed to be best for the 
native as well as the foreign-born population of the 
Island. The Hawaiian monarchy for twenty years had 
been especially injurious to the welfare of the native Ha- 
waiians. The government and those supporting it desire 
annexation, because they justly regard present Hawaii in 
reality an American colony, closely identified with American 
interests and governed by American ideas, American laws 
and American judicial rules and decisions. In reporting the 




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HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 305 

treaty of annexation, February, 1893, the Senate Committee 
of Foreign Affairs acted as American statesmen in dealing 
with facts, events and interests as they found them. They 
came to the same conclusion as did the Democratic admin- 
istration in 1 8^4, when Secretary Wm. L Marcy authorized 
Commissioner Gregg to negotiate a treaty of annexation, 
which that Commissioner did negotiate, though he exceeded 
his instructions as to the provisions of the treaty. The 
treaty of 185^4 failed through divided counsels at Honolulu. 

Marcy, the able Democratic leader of his time, a cool, 
sagacious statesman, in a dispatch to United States Min- 
ister Mason, at Paris. December 16, 1851, speaking of the 
Hawaii Islands, said : — 

•'Both England and France are apprised of our deter- 
mination not to allow them to be owned by, or to fall 
under the protection of, either of these powers or of any 
other European nation." 

Luther Severance, an able, safe, and sagacious man, 
well known to the country in his time, whom Daniel 
Webster honored, after four years' residence at Honolulu, 
came to the same conclusion as did Secretary Marcy. As 
far back as June, 1843, Secretary of State H. S. Legare, in 
a dispatch to Edward Everett, United States Minister at 
London, placed nearly as high an estimate of the value of 
the ultimate American possession of the Hawaiian Islands; 
he used this language : — 



3o6 HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 

" If the attempts now making by ourselves, as well as by other 
Christian powers, to open the markets of China to a more general 
commerce be successful, there can be no doubt but that a great part 
of that commerce will find its way over the Isthmus. In that event 
it will be impossible to overrate the importance of the Hawaiian 
group as a stage in the long voyage between Asia and America. 
But without anticipating events which, however, seem inevitable, 
and even approaching the actual demands of an immense navigation, 
make the free use of those roadsteads and ports indispensable to us. 
1 need not remind you, who are in so peculiar manner related to 
that most important interest, commercial and political, that our great 
nursery of seamen, the whale fishery, has for years past made this 
cluster of islands its rendezvous and resting-place. It seems doubt- 
ful whether even the undisputed possession of the Oregon Territory 
and the use of the Columbia River, or indeed, anything short of the 
acquisition of California (if that were possible), would be sufficient 
indemnity to us for the loss of these harbors." 

These views of Legare, Marcy, and other distinguished 
statesmen, were fully shared by Wm. H. Seward, who 
had remarkable foresight as to the vast future of American 
commerce in the Pacific, and looked forward to the an- 
nexation of Hawaii as necessary and inevitable, and would 
have urged it during his occupancy of the State Depart- 
ment had he found the Honolulu authorities ready for it. 
Under the date of Sept. 12, 1867, in a dispatch to United 
States Minister McCook at Honolulu, Secretary Seward 
wrote as follows : — 

"You will be governed in all your proceedings by a proper 
respect and courtesy to the Government and people of the Sandwicn 



HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 307 

Islands ; but it is proper that you should know, for your own 
information, that a lawful and peaceful annexation of the Islands to 
the United States, with the consent of the people of the Sandwich 
Islands, is deemed desirable by this Government ; and that if the 
policy of annexation should really conflict with the policy of reci- 
procity, annexation is in every case to be preferred. 

" The bearer of this communication will remain for the present 
at Honolulu, and will conform himself in his proceedings there to 
your advice, co-operating with you confidentially ; and you will 
exercise your own discretion how far it may be necessary and when 
to instruct him in any of the matters contained in this dispatch. 

"I am, etc., WILLIAM H. SEWARD." 

in his annual message to Congress, December 9, 1868, 
President Johnson said : — 

" It is known and felt by the Hawaiian Government and people 
that their Government and institutions are feeble and precarious ; 
that the United States, being so near a neighbor, would be unwill- 
ing to see the Islands pass under foreign control. Their prosperity 
is continually disturbed by expectations and alarms of unfriendly 
political proceedings, as well from the United States as from other 
foreign powers. A reciprocity treaty, while it could not materially 
diminish the revenues of the United States, would be a guaranty of 
the good-will and forbearance of all nations until the people of the 
Islands shall of themselves, at no distant day, voluntarily apply for 
admission into the Union." 

This passage in the message of the President was 
undoubtedly written by Secretary Seward. 

None have defended these views more ably than 
James G. Blaine, in a remarkable state paper during 
President Garfield's Administration. In another dispatch, 



30S HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 

of Dec. i, 1 88 1, to United States Minister Comly at Hono- 
lulu, Secretary Blaine said: — 

" The decline of the native Hawaiian element in the presence of 
newer and sturdier growths must be accepted as an inevitable fact, 
in view of the teachings of ethnological history. And as retrogres- 
sion in the development of the Islands can not be admitted without 
serious detriment to American interests in the North Pacific, the 
problem of a replenishment of the vital forces of Hawaii presents 
itself for intelligent solution in an American sense — not in an Asiatic 
or a British sense. 

"There is little doubt that, were the Hawaiian Islands, by 
annexation or district protection, a part of the territory of the Union, 
their fertile resources for the growth of rice and sugar would not 
only be controlled by American capital, but so profitable a field of 
labor would attract intelligent workers thither from the United 
States." 

None have advocated the value of Hawaii to the 
united States more eloquently than John T. Morgan, the 
able Chairman of the Senate Committee of Foreign Affairs, 
who sees clearly the immense importance of future Amer- 
ican interests in the Pacific. 

The history of nations conclusively shows what the 
ablest expounders of international law plainly teach, that 
the annexation of foreign territory is an act of national 
sovereignty. This inherent, primal power of a nation ex- 
ists outside of and independent of the written constitution 
Every nation capable of maintaining its independence 
against internal and foreign attacks, is the master of its own 










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HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION. 311 

sovereignty and never abdicates it by any recorded formu- 
lary. The assumption of construing the constitution of 
the United States to be supreme against our national life, 
prosperity and absolutely independent authority, will never 
be admitted by patriotic Americans, nor by sagacious 
American statesmen. The opposition to the annexation of 
Hawaii by a special school of legal writers, is only a repe- 
tition of what has repeatedly occurred in American history 
since the adoption of the Federal Constitution. President 
Jefferson and those associated with him in acquiring the 
extensive territory of Louisiana, was obliged to confront 
this theory of the superiority of the constitution to national 
sovereignty. Though he was a strict constructionist of the 
constitution against the views of the school of Washington 
and Hamilton, he held the law of the nation's life to be 
supreme, and he promptly authorized the purchase of the 
vast domain, for fifteen millions of dollars, at the risk of a 
war with Spain and the threatened opposition of Great 
Britain. Equally strong constitutional objections were 
made to the acquisition of Texas, California, New Mexico 
and Alaska, which annexations were approved by the great 
statesmen of the Democratic, Whig, and Republican 
schools. The acquisition of the Hawaiian Islands by the 
United States is plainly a national necessity and a national 
duty. Does any thoughtful American citizen really believe 
tnat the American nation, planted between the two great 



::: HISTORY OF THE REVOLUTION". 

oceans, on a broad, sure base, such as no other nation in 
the world ever occupied with its immense resources to 
. the world's commerjr. is :o be shut up within its 
ent boundaries? Those who have made history a 
js stud/ and understand the force of its irresistible 
logic, can not hold this restricted theory. To make sale of 
the enormous surplus products of their mines, their spin- 
dles, of their countless forms of machinery. American 
merchants and American ships must go abroad with all the 
agendes of a mighty commerce — a commerce which will 
extent the combined trade of ancient Tyre and 
Carthage, and of modern Great Britain. 

This rich prize is now freely offered to the Unitea 
States. It can not be possible that the American people 
and the American statesmen will refuse to accept it To 
spurn and reject this important and thoroughly American 
colony, planted by some of the m:s: devoted of Ameri- 
can sons and daughters, fostered by . : \n benevo- 

vmpathy, aided by a million dollars of pr: 
contributions, encouraged for more than sixty years by 
the American government — to abandon the people of this 
cole : at this crucial period of their history would be 

,nd inhumanity, which no self-respecting Chris- 
tian nation will be guilty of, the least of all the great Amer- 
ican nation. in the North P. 

iom and patriotism to ignore. 



EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. IGNO- 
MINIOUS FAILURE. PROVISIONAL GOV- 
ERNMENT STRONGER. 

There are in the history of human affairs many strange 
things, of whose causes and objects it is difficult to ac- 
count on any reasonable hypothesis. History is said to 
be philosophy speaking by example. If this be a sound 
axiom, there is certainly some very peculiar philosophy in 
this world. To an American — to any enlightened person 
of the present century of intelligence — the piece of history 
disclosed by the official documents which make the most 
of this chapter, must seem as absurd, if not as astonishing, 
as anything in the Arabian Nights or in the romance of 
Don Quixote. President Cleveland had been in the ex- 
ecutive chair only three days, nearly every hour of which 
had been occupied by the customary inaugural routine, 
without having had time to inform himself of the official 
data on file at the State Department and in possession of 
the Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate, when he 
had resolved to reverse the policy of his predecessors 
toward Hawaii, and to restore the little monarchy, which 

818 



3H EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALAXI. 

the responsible citizens of the Islands had found it 
absolutely necessary to abolish. Finding in Walter Q. 
Gresham, his Secretary of State, one fully sharing his 
views, the President appointed Col. James H. Blount, of 
Georgia, to go to Honolulu to make out a case against the 
Provisional Government and to prepare the way for the 
restoration of the dethroned Liliuokalani. Though the 
Senate was then in session, and the majority of that body 
were well informed as to the state of things in Hawaii, 
and the causes and justifications of the recent change in its 
government, the President did not take the Senate into his 
counsel, nor submit the appointment of Col. Blount to its 
approval. An unauthorized power was given the Presi- 
dent's Commissioner to outrank and command the United 
States Minister Plenipotentiary and the Admiral then on 
duty at Honolulu. Arriving at the Hawaiian capital late in 
March, 1893, Col. Blount immediately showed his strong 
prejudices against the course of the Harrison Administra- 
tion, and the officials who had been on duty at Honolulu 
during the exciting and eventful days of January and 
February. Though advised by highly respected Americans, 
living in Honolulu, to take his quarters where both the 
friends of the Provisional Government and the supporters 
of the fallen monarchy could have equally ready access 
to him, he elected to go to the hotel which had 'long 
been the royalist's headquarters, whose managers were 




HON. LORR1N A. THURSTON. Hawaiian Minister at Washington, is a grand- 
son of one of the pioneer missionaries to Hawaii. He is a lawyer and a graduate 
of the Columbia Law School. During the early struggles against the encroach- 
ments of King Kalakaua, Mr. Thurston edited one of the Honolulu daily p 
and was influential in crystallizing public sentiment. 



EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 317 

thoroughly anti-American in their prejudices and plans, 
and where monarchical espionage of the newly-arrived 
Commissioner and those who called upon him, would be 
complete. Thus surrounded, Special Commissioner Blount 
turned a cold shoulder to his own respectable countrymen 
and took ex-parte testimony from the supporters of the 
fallen monarchy, those who had shared in its moral and 
financial abuses, and who were eager to give any testi- 
mony that might aid in the already matured scheme to 
restore the fallen Liliuokalani and the lottery and opium 
rings, who had encouraged her in the official infamy 
which had ended in her revolutionary attempt to over- 
throw the Hawaiian Constitution and led to her irrevocable 
downfall. In this wholly one-sided and partisan manner 
Mr. Blount obtained his data for the extraordinary report 
on which was based the extraordinary plan of President 
Cleveland and Secretary Gresham, to restore the semi- 
barbaric Queen and her palace favorite, Wilson, to rule 
over an intelligent and patriotic American colony, and 
those of other nationalities who are in full accord in 
spirit and purpose with that colony in supporting the 
Provisional Government and in seeking commercial and 
political union with the United States. How signally 
failed this astonishing design of restoring the justly 
dethroned monarch, is plainly told in the following official 
documents, which complete this chapter of Hawaiian 



318 EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 

history. One compensation to the anxious and Lnreat 
ened American colony is, that the attempt to discredit and 
destroy the Provisional Government has greatly strength- 
ened its cause both at home and abroad, and its brave 
supporters know now that they have the earnest and 
active sympathy of a majority of the American people, 
and that their future destiny as a part of the American 
Union is sure. Another evidence that everything valuable 
in civilization and in government comes through trial and 
sacrifice. 

There appears below the text of the address of the 
United States Minister Albert S. Willis to the President of 
the Provisional Government of Hawaii on the occasion of 
his first official visit to the Hawaiian Executive ; the reply 
of President Sanford P. Dole to that address ; the letter of 
credence then presented by Minister Willis and the corre- 
spondence preceding and covering the demands that the 
President of the United States made through his Envoy 
Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, 19th of Decem- 
ber, 1893, upon the Hawaiian Government. 

MINISTER WILLIS' REMARKS 

Upon the Presentation of His Credentials to the provisional 

government. 

Mr. President : — Mr. Blount, the late Envoy Extraordinary and 
Minister Plenipotentiary of the United States to your Government, 
having resigned his office when absent from his post, I have the 



EFFORT TO RESTORE LIL1UOKALANI. 319 

honor now to present his letter of recall, and to express for him his 
sincere regret that he is unable in person to make known his con- 
tinued good wishes in behalf of your people, and his grateful appre- 
ciation of the many courtesies, both personal and official, of which, 
while here, he was the honored recipient. 

I desire at the same time to place in your hands the letter 
accrediting me as his successor. In doing this I am directed by the 
President to give renewed assurances of the friendship, interest and 
hearty good-will which our Government entertains for you and for 
the people of this Island realm. 

Aside from our geographical proximity and the consequent pre- 
ponderating commercial interests which center here, the present 
advanced civilization and Christianization of your people, together 
with your enlightened codes of law, stand to-day beneficent monu- 
ments of American zeal, courage and intelligence. 

It is not surprising, therefore, that the United States were the 
first to recognize the independence of the Hawaiian Islands, and to 
welcome them into the great family of free, equal and sovereign 
nations, nor is it surprising that this historic tie has been strength- 
ened from year to year, by important mutual reciprocities and agree- 
ments, alike honorable and advantageous to both Governments. 

Invoking that spirit of peace, friendship and hospitality which 
has ever been the shield and sword of this country, I now, upon 
behalf of the United States of America, tender to your people the 
right hand of good-will, which I trust may be as lasting as I know 
it to be sincere, expressing the hope that every year will promote 
and perpetuate that good-will to the honor, happiness and prosperity 
of both Governments. 

PRESIDENT DOLE'S Remarks.— President Dole replied, reading 
from manuscript in the language following: — 

Mr. Minister: — It is with much satisfaction that 1 receive the 
credentials you bring from His Excellency the President ot the 
United States of America, accrediting you as Envoy Extraordinary 



3 2o EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 

and Minister Plenipotentiary to represent that country at the capital 
or the Hawaiian Islands. 

Your assurances of the continued friendship of your Govern- 
ment for me and the Hawaiian people add to the gratification which 
a long experience of the generous consideration of the United States 
for this country has fostered. 

Permit me to assure you that we heartily reciprocate the expres- 
sion of interest and good-will which you, on behalf of the American 
people, have conveyed to us. 

Partly from proximity, partly from the leading influence of 
American citizens in the work of inaugurating Christian civilization 
and industrial enterprise in these islands, but still more from the 
repeated acts of friendly assistance which we have received from 
your Government during the past half century, we have become 
accustomed to regard the United States as a friend and ally, and 
have learned to look first to her for help in our emergencies. 

I regret the inability of your predecessor, Mr. Blount, to person- 
ally present his letter of recall and to afford me the opportunity to 
express to him my appreciation of the agreeable official and social 
relations that existed between him and our Government and people 
during his residence here. 

We congratulate ourselves, Mr. Minister, that the Government 
of the United States is to be represented by one who, we are 
assured, is familiar with the questions arising from the relations 
between the two Governments, and with whom we look for the 
maintenance of pleasant official intercourse. 



LETTER OF CREDENCE. 

GROVER CLEVELAND, President of the United States of America, 

To His Excellency, SANFORD B. DOLE, President of the Provisional Govern- 
ment of the Hawaiian Islands. 

Great and Good Friend : I have made choice of Albert S. Willis, 

one of our distinguished citizens, to reside near the Government of 



EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 321 

Your Excellency in the quality of Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
Plenipotentiary of the United States of America. 

He is well informed of the relative interests of the two countries, 
and of our sincere desire to cultivate to the fullest extent the 
friendship which has so long subsisted between us. My knowledge 
of his high character and ability gives me entire confidence that he 
will constantly endeavor to advance the interest and prosperity of 
both Governments, and so render himself acceptable to Your Excel- 
lency. 

I therefore request Your Excellency to receive him favorably and 
to give full credence to what he shall say on the part of the United 
States, and to the assurances which I have charged him to convey 
to you of the best wishes of this Government for the prosperity of 
the Hawaiian Islands. 

May God have Your Excellency in His wise keeping. 

Written at Washington this twenty-seventh day of September, 

in the year 1893. 

Your good friend, GROVER CLEVELAND. 

By the President. 

ALVEY A. ADEE, Acting Secretary of State. 



PRELIMINARY CORRESPONDENCE. 

Department of Foreign Affairs, 

Honolulu, November 29, 1893. 

Sir : — Having received from our Minister at Washington, Hon. 
Lorrin A. Thurston, accredited to the Government of the United 
States of America, information of an official letter from Secretary of 
State, Hon. Walter Q. Gresham, to President Cleveland, which is 
of an unfriendly nature towards this Government, recommending 
hostile action by the President toward us, alleged copies of which 
letter have been published in the American press ; I desire to inquire 
of you whether the published reports of such letter of Secretary 



322 EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 

Gresham are substantially correct ? If they are, I feel that it is due 
this Government that it should be informed of the intentions of 
your Government in relation to the suggestion contained in the said 
letter of Mr. Gresham. 

Accept the assurance of the profound consideration and high 
esteem with which I have the honor to be Your Excellency's 

Most obedient servant, 

(Signed) SANFORD B. DOLE, 

Minister of Foreign Affairs. 

His Excellency ALBERT S. WILLIS, U. S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
Plenipotentiary, Honolulu. 



Legation of the United States, 

HONOLULU, December 2, 1893. 

Sir : — I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your note 
of the 29th ult., inquiring as to the authenticity of a letter of Hon. 
W. Q. Gresham, Secretary of State, upon the Hawaiian question ; 
and stating that if the "published reports of such letter are sub- 
stantially correct " you "feel that it is due this (your) Govern- 
ment 'that it should be informed of the intentions of your (my) 
Government in relation to the suggestions contained in the said 
letter of Mr. Gresham/ " 

As to the letter of Mr. Gresham I have the honor to call your 
attention to the fact, as shown by you, that it is a communicatioi 
from a member of the Cabinet to the President of the United States, 
and, being a domestic transaction, is not the subject of diplomatic 
representation. 

Answering your note further, I must express my sincere regret 
that it is not in my power at present to inform you of the views or 
intentions of the United States. The President earnestly desires a 
speedy settlement of your troubles, and will, in my opinion, be 



EFFORT TO RESTORE L1LIUOKALANI. 323 

ready to make known his purposes as soon as he is informed of cer- 
tain matters recently submitted to him. With high regard, I am 

Very respectfully, 
(Signed) ALBERT S. WILLIS, 

Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, U. S. A. 

HON. SANFORD B. DOLE, Minister of Foreign Affairs. 



Department of Foreign Affairs, 

Honolulu, December 18, 1893. 
Sir : — I am informed that you are in communication with Liliuo- 
kalani, the ex-Queen, with a view of re-establishing the monarchy 
in the Hawaiian Islands, and of supporting her pretensions to the 
sovereignty. Will you inform me if this report is true, or if you are 
acting in any way hostile to this Government ? 

I appreciate fully the fact that any such action upon your part, 
in view of your official relations with this Government, would seem 
impossible ; but as the information has come to me from such 
sources that I am compelled to notice it, you will pardon me for 
pressing you for an immediate answer. 

Accept the assurance of distinguished consideration, with which 
I have the honor to be, Sir, 

Your Excellency's obedient humble servant, 

(Signed) SANFORD B. DOLE, 

Minister of Foreign Affairs. 

His Excellency, ALBERT S. WILLIS, U. S. Envoy Extraordinary and Minister 
Plenipotentiary, Honolulu. 



Legation of the United States, 

Honolulu, Dec. 19, 1893. 

Sir: — I have the honor to inform you that I have a communica- 
tion from my Government which I desire to submit to the President 



3 2 4 EFFORT TO RESTORE LIL1UOKALANI. 

and Ministers of your Government at any hour to-day which it may 
please you to designate. 

With high regard and sincere respect, I am, Sir, 
Your obedient servant, 

(Signed) ALBERT S. WILLIS, 

Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary, U. S. A. 
HON. SANFORD B. DOLE, Minister of Foreign Affairs. 



THE INTERVIEW AND DEMAND. 

Foreign Office, 
Honolulu, December 19, 1893. 

Present : — President, Sanford B. Dole ; Hon. S. M. Damon, Min- 
ister of Finance ; Hon. J. A. King, Minister of Interior ; Hon. W. O. 
Smith, Attorney-General ; Hon. Albert S. Willis, Envoy Extraordi- 
nary and Minister Plenipotentiary, U. S. A. 

MR. WILLIS : Will Mr. Jones be present at this interview ? 

PRESIDENT DOLE : We wish to have him present, if you have 
no objection. 

MR. Willis : Is he a stenographer ? 

President Dole : Yes, sir. 

Mr. Willis : No objection at all. 

Mr. President and Gentlemen : — The President of the United 
States has very much regretted the delay in the Hawaiian question, 
but it has been unavoidable. So much of it as has occurred since 
my arrival has been due to certain conditions precedent, compliance 
with which was required before I was authorized to confer with you. 
The President also regrets, as most assuredly do I, that any secrecy 
should have surrounded the interchange of views between our two 
Governments. I may say this, however, that the secrecy thus far 
observed has been in the interest and for the safety of all your 
people. I need hardly premise that the President's action upon the 
Hawaiian question has been under the dictates of honor and duty ; 




PROF. W. R. ALEXANDER, the son of an American Missionary is the Sur- 
veyor General of the Hawaiian Islands. He was born at the Islands, but was 
educated at Yale College. He was for seven years President of Oahu College at 
Honolulu, resigning to accept the position he now holds. He is the acknowledged 
authority in historical, antiquarian and scientific matters pertaining to Hawaii. 



EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 327 

it is now, and has been from the beginning, absolutely free from 
prejudice and resentment and entirely consistent with the long- 
established friendship and treaty ties which have so closely bound 
together our respective Governments. 

The President deemed it his duty to withdraw from the Senate 
the treaty of annexation, which has been signed by the Secretary 
of State and the agents of your Government, and to dispatch a 
trusted representative to Hawaii to impartially investigate the causes 
of your revolution and to ascertain and report the true situation in 
these Islands. This information was needed the better to enable 
the President to discharge a delicate and important duty. 

Upon the facts embodied in Mr. Blount's reports, the President 
has arrived at certain conclusions and determined upon a certain 
course of action, with which it becomes my duty to acquaint you : — 

The Provisional Government was not established by the Ha- 
waiian people or with their consent or acquiescence, nor has it since 
existed with their consent. 

The Queen refused to surrender her powers to the Provisional 
Government until convinced that the Minister of the United States 
had recognized it as the de facto authority and would support and 
defend it with the military force of the United States, and that 
resistance would precipitate a bloody conflict with that force. 

She was advised and assured by her Ministers and leaders of 
the movement for the overthrow of her Government that if she 
surrendered under protest her case would afterwards be fairly con- 
sidered by the President of the United States. 

The Queen finally yielded to the armed forces of the United 
States, then quartered in Honolulu, relying on the good faith and 
honor of the President, when informed of what had occurred, to 
undo the action of the Minister and reinstate her and the authority 
which she claimed as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian 
Islands. 

After a patient examination of Mr. Blount's reports the President 



328 EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 

is satisfied that trie movement against the Queen, if not instigated, 
was encouraged and supported by the representative of this Gov- 
ernment at Honolulu ; that he promised in advance to aid her 
enemies in an effort to overthrow the Hawaiian Government and 
set up by force a new Government in its place, and that he kept 
this promise by causing a detachment of troops to be landed from 
the " Boston " on the 16th of January, 1893, and by recognizing the 
Provisional Government the next day, when it was too feeble to 
defend itself, and the Constitutional Government was able to suc- 
cessfully maintain its authority against any threatening force other 
than that of the United States already landed. 

The President has, therefore, determined that he will not send 
back to the Senate for its action thereon, the treaty which he with- 
drew from that body for further consideration, on the ninth day of 
March last. 

In view of these conclusions I was instructed by the President 
to take advantage of an early opportunity to inform the Queen of 
this determination and of his views as to the responsibility of our 
Government. The President, however, felt that we by our original 
interference had incurred responsibility to the whole Hawaiian com- 
munity, and that it would not be just to put one party at the mercy 
of the other. I was, therefore, instructed at the same time to inform 
the Queen that when reinstated the President expected that she 
would pursue a magnanimous course by granting full amnesty to 
all who participated in the movement against her, including per- 
sons who are, or who have been, officially or otherwise connected 
with the Provisional Government, depriving them of no right or 
privilege which they enjoyed before the revolution of last January, 
and that all obligations created by the Provisional Government in 
due course of administration should be assumed. 

In obedience to the command of the President I have secured 
the Queen's agreement to this course, and I now deliver a writing 
signed by her and duly attested, a copy of which I will leave with 



EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 329 

you. I will now read that writing. I will read from the original, 
leaving with you a certified copy : — 

" I, Liliuokalani, in recognition of the high sense of justice 
which has actuated the President of the United States, and desiring 
to put aside all feeling of personal hatred or revenge, and to do what 
is best for all the people on these Islands, both native and foreign- 
born, do hereby and herein solemnly declare and pledge myself that 
if reinstated as the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands, 
that I will immediately proclaim and declare unconditionally and 
without reservation to every person who directly or indirectly par- 
ticipated in the revolution of January 17, 1893, a full pardon and 
amnesty for their offenses with restoration of all rights and immu- 
nities under the Constitution and the laws which have been made 
in pursuance thereof, and that I will forbid and prevent the adoption 
of any measures of prosecution or punishment for what has been 
done in the past by those setting up or supporting the Provisional 
Government. 

" I further solemnly agree to accept the restoration under the 
Constitution existing at the time of the said revolution, and that I 
will abide by and fully execute that Constitution with all the guar- 
antees as to person and property therein contained. 

" I furthermore solemnly pledge myself and my Government, if 
restored, to assure all the obligations created by the Provisional Gov- 
ernment in the proper course of administration, including all expen- 
ditures for military and police service ; it being my purpose, if 
reinstated, to assume the Government precisely as it existed on the 
day when it was unlawfully overthrown. 

" Witness my hand this eighteenth day of December, 1893. 

" Liliuokalani. 
"Attest: J. O. Carter." 

It becomes my further duty to advise you, Sir, the Executive of 
the Provisional Government and your Ministers, of the President's 



33o EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 

determination of the question which your action and that of the 
Queen devolved upon him, and that your are expected to promptly 
relinquish to her her constitutional authority. And now, Mr. Presi- 
dent and Gentlemen of the Provisional Government, with a deep 
and solemn sense of the situation and with the earnest hope that 
your answer will be inspired by that high patriotism which forgets 
all self-interest, in the name and by the authority of the United 
States of America, I submit to you the question : Are you willing to 
abide by the decision of the President ? 

I will leave this with you Mr. President, as your stenographer 
may not have got every word and it may help him. I will also 
leave the certified copy that I referred to, the agreement of the 
Queen. 

President Dole : The Government will take the matter under 
consideration and answer you as soon as they are ready. 

MR. WILLIS : Yes, sir. Gentlemen, good day. 



PRESIDENT DOLE'S REPLY. 

Executive Building, 
Honolulu, December 23, 1893. 

Sir : Your Excellency's communication of December 19th, an- 
nouncing the conclusion which the President of the United States 
of America has finally arrived at respecting the application of this 
Government for a treaty of political union with that country, and. 
referring also to the domestic affairs of these Islands, has had the 
consideration of the Government. 

While it is with deep disappointment that we learn that the 
important proposition which we have submitted to the Government 
of the United States, and which was at first favorably considered by 
it, has at length been rejected, we have experienced a sense of 
relief that we are now favored with the first official information upon 
the subject that has been received through a period of over nine 
months. 



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QUEEN KAPIOLANI. — Kapiolani, wife of the King Knlakaua, a woman of the 
greatest amiability of character, is a granddaughter of the last king of Kauai. 
Her features are of the best Hawaiian type. Although able to converse in the 
Hawaiian language alone, and with shy, rather timid manners, she was a favorite 
with the foreigners who attended her husband's Court. 



EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 333 

While we accept the decision of the President of the United 
States, declining further to consider the annexation proposition as the 
final conclusion of the present Administration, we do not feel 
inclined to regard it as the last word of the American Government 
upon this subject ; for the history of the mutual relations of the two 
countries, of American effort and influence in building up the 
Christian civilization which has so conspicuously aided in giving this 
country an honorable place among independent nations, the geo- 
graphical position of these Islands, and the important and, to both 
countries, profitable reciprocal commercial interests which have so 
long existed, together with our weakness as a sovereign nation, all 
point with convincing force to political union between the two 
countries as the necessary logical result from the circumstances 
mentioned. This conviction is emphasized by the favorable expres- 
sion of American statesmen over a long period in favor of annexa- 
tion, conspicuous among whom are the names of W. L. Marcy, 
William H. Seward, Hamilton Fish and James G. Blaine, all former 
Secretaries of State, and especially so by the action of your last 
Administration in negotiating a treaty of annexation with this Gov- 
ernment and sending it to the Senate with a view to its ratification. 

We shall therefore continue the project of political union with 
the United States as a conspicuous feature of our foreign policy, 
confidently hoping that sooner or later it will be crowned with 
success, to the lasting benefit of both countries. 

The additional portion of your communication, referring to our 
domestic affairs, with a view of interfering therein, is a new 
departure in the relations of the two Governments. Your informa- 
tion that the President of the United States expects this Government 
" to promptly relinquish to her (meaning the ex-Queen) her consti- 
tutional authority, " with the question, "Are you willing to abide by 
the decision of the President ? " might well be dismissed in a single 
word, but for the circumstance that your communication contains, 
as it appears to me, misstatements, and erroneous conclusions based 






EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALAXI. 



thereon that are so prejudicial to this Government, that I can not 
permit them to pass unchallenged ; moreover, the importance and 
menacing character of this proposition make it appropriate for me 
to discuss somewhat fully the questions raised by 

We do not recognize the right of the President of the Un 
States to interfere in our domestic affairs. Such right could be 
conferred upon him by the act of this Government, and by that 
alone ; or it could be acquired by conquest. This I understand to 
be the American doctrine, conspicuously announced from time to 
time by the authorities of your Government. 

President Jackson said, in his message to Congress, in 1836: 
"The uniform policy and practice of the United States is to avoid 
all interference in disputes which merely relate to the internal 
government of other nations, and eventually to recognize the 
authority of the prevailing party, without reference to the merits of 
the original controversy." 

This principle of international law has been consistently rec- 
ognized during the whole past intercourse of the two countries, 
and was recently re-affirmed in the instructions given by Secretary 
Gresham to Commissioner Blount, on March ir, 1893, and by the 
latter published in the newspapers in Honolulu, in a letter of his 
own to the Hawaiian public. The words of these instructions 
which I refer to are as follows : "The United States claim no right 
to interfere in the political or domestic affairs, or in the internal 
conflicts of the Hawaiian Islands other than as herein stated (re- 
ferring to the protection of American citizens), or for the purpose of 
maintaining any treaty or other rights which they possess." The 
treaties between the two countries confer no right of interference. 

Upon what then, Mr. Minister, does the President of the United 
State his right of interference ? Your communication is 

without information on this point, excepting such as may be con- 
tained in the following brief and vague sentences: "She (the 
ex-Queen; was advised and assured by her Ministers and leaders of 



EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 335 

the movement for the overthrow of her Government, that if she 
surrendered under protest, her case would afterward be fairly con- 
sidered by the President of the United States. The Queen finally 
yielded to the armed forces of the United States then quartered in 
Honolulu, relying on the good faith and honor of the President, 
when informed of what occurred, to undo the action of the Minister, 
and reinstate her and the authority which she claimed as the consti- 
tutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands." Also, "It becomes 
my further duty to advise you, Sir, the Executive of the Provisional 
Government, and your Ministers, of the President's determination 
of the question which your action and that of the Queen devolved 
upon him, and that you are expected to promptly relinquish to her 
her constitutional authority." I understand that the first quotation 
is referred to in the following words of the second : " which your 
action and that of the Queen devolved upon him " (the President of 
the United States), and that the President has arrived at his 
conclusions from Commissioner Blount's report. We have had, 
as yet, no opportunity of examining this document ; but, from 
extracts published in the papers and for reasons set forth hereafter, 
we are not disposed to submit the fate of Hawaii to its statements 
and conclusions. As a matter of fact, no member of the Executive 
of the Provisional Government has conferred with the ex-Queen, 
either verbally or otherwise, from the time that the new Govern- 
ment was proclaimed till now, with the exception of one or two 
notices which were sent to her by myself, in regard to her removal 
from the Palace, and relating to the guards which the Government 
first allowed her, and perhaps others of a like nature. I infer that 
a conversation with Mr. Damon, then a member of the Advisory 
Council, is reported by Mr. Blount to have had with the ex-Queen 
on January 17th, and which has been quoted in the newspapers, is 
the basis of this astounding claim of the President of the United 
States of his authority to adjudicate upon our rights as a Govern- 
ment to exist. Mr. Damon, on the occasion mentioned, was allowed 



336 EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 

to accompany the Cabinet of the former Government, who had 
been in conference with me and my associates, to meet the ex- 
Queen ; he went informally, without instructions and without 
authority to represent the Government, or to assure the ex-Queen 
"that if she surrendered under protest her case would afterward be 
fairly considered by the President of the United States." Our 
ultimatum had been already given to the members of the ex-cabinet 
who had been in conference with us. What Mr. Damon said to the 
ex-Queert he said on his individual responsibility, and did not report 
it to us. Mr. Blount's report of his remarks on that occasion 
furnished to the Government its first information of the nature of 
those remarks. Admitting, for argument's sake, that the Govern- 
ment had authorized such assurances, what was "her case" that 
was afterward to "be fairly considered by the President of the 
United States? " Was it the question of her right to subvert the 
Hawaiian Constitution and to proclaim a new one to suit herself, or 
was it her claim to be restored to the sovereignty, or was it her 
claim against the United States for the alleged unwarrantable acts 
of Minister Stevens, or was it all these in the alternative ? Who 
can say ? But if it had been all of these, or any of them, it could 
not have been more clearly and finally decided by the President of 
the United States in favor of the Provisional Government than 
when he recognized it without qualification and received its accred- 
ited Commissioners, negotiated a treaty of annexation with them, 
received its accredited Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Pleni- 
potentiary, and accredited successively two Envoys Extraordinary 
and Ministers Plenipotentiary to it ; the ex-Queen in the meantime 
being represented in Washington by her agent who had full access 
to the Department of State. 

The whole business of the Government with the President of 
the United States is set forth in the correspondence between the two 
Governments and the acts and statements of the Minister or this 
Government at Washington and the Annexation Commissioners 




8TEAMEB AUSTRALIA. The Oceanic Company's steamship Australia makes the 
trip from San Francisco to the Eawaiian Islands every tour weeks. This steamer 
carries the larger part of the tourists to Honolulu, as it is the only one that -ails to 
that port alone, the other large ocean steamers merely stopping en route to Australia 

or Japan and ( liina. 



EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 339 

accredited to it. If we have submitted our right to exist to the 
United States, the fact will appear in that correspondence and the 
acts of our Minister and Commissioners. Such agreement must be 
shown as the foundation of the right of your Government to inter- 
fere, for an arbitrator can be created only by the act of two parties. 
The ex-Queen sent her attorney to Washington to plead her 
claim for reinstatement in power, or failing that, for a money allow- 
ance or damages. This attorney was refused passage on the Gov- 
ernment dispatch-boat, which was sent to San Francisco with the 
Annexation Commissioners and their message. The departure of 
this vessel was less than two days after the new Government was 
declared, and the refusal was made promptly upon receiving the 
request therefor, either on the day the Government was declared, 
or on the next day. If an intention to submit the question of the 
reinstatement of the ex-Queen had existed, why should her attorney 
have been refused passage on this boat ? The ex-Queen's letter 
to President Harrison, dated January 18th, the day after the new 
Government was proclaimed, makes no allusion to any understand- 
ing between her and the Government for arbitration. Her letter is 
as follows : — 

44 His Excellency, BENJAMIN HARRISON, President of the United States. 

"My Great and Good Friend: — It is with deep regret that I 
address you on this occasion. Some of my subjects, aided by aliens, 
have renounced their loyalty and revolted against the constitutional 
Government of my kingdom. They have attempted to depose me 
and to establish a Provisional Government, in direct conflict with 
the organic law of this kingdom. Upon receiving incontestible proof 
that His Excellency, the Minister Plenipotentiary of the United 
States, aided and abetted their unlawful movements and caused 
United States troops to be landed for that purpose, I submitted to 
force, believing that he would not have acted in that manner unless 
by the authority of the Government which he represents. 



340 EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 

" This action on my part was prompted by three reasons : The 
futility of a conflict with the United States ; thf desire to avoid 
violence, bloodshed and the destruction of life and property, and 
the certainty which I feel that you and your Government will right 
whatever wrongs may have been inflicted upon us in the premises. 

" In due time a statement of the true facts relating to this matter 
will be laid before you, and I live in the hope that you will judge 
uprightly and justly between myself and my enemies. This appeal 
is not made for myself personally, but for my people, who have 
hitherto always enjoyed the friendship and protection of the United 
States. 

"My opponents have taken the only vessel which could be 
obtained here for the purpose and, hearing of their intention to 
send a delegation of their number to present their side of this 
conflict before you, I requested the favor of sending by the same 
vessel an envoy to you, to lay before you my statement, as the 
facts appear to myself and my loyal subjects. 

" This request has been refused, and I now ask you that in 
justice to myself and to my people that no steps be taken by the 
Government of the United States until my cause can be heard by 
you. 

" I shall be able to dispatch an envoy about the 2d of February, 
as that will be the first available opportunity hence, and he will 
reach you with every possible haste, that there may be no delay in 
the settlement of this matter. 

" I pray you, therefore, my good friend, that you will not allow 
any conclusions to be reached by you until my envoy arrives. 

"I beg to assure you of the continuance of my highest con- 
sideration. 

" LILIUOKALANI R. 

" HONOLULU, January 18, 1893." 

If any understanding had existed at that time between her and 
the Government to submit the question of her restoration to the 



EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 341 

United States, some reference to such understanding would naturally 
have appeared in this letter, as every reason would have existed for 
calling the attention of the President to that fact, especially as she 
then knew that her attorney would be seriously delayed in reaching 
Washington. But there is not a word from which such an under- 
standing can be predicated. The Government sent its Commis- 
sioners to Washington for the sole object of procuring the confirmation 
of the recognition by Minister Stevens of the new Government, and 
to enter into negotiations for political union with the United States. 
The protest of the ex-Queen, made on January 17th, is equally 
with the letter, devoid of evidence of any mutual understanding for 
a submission of her claim to the throne, to the United States. It is 
very evidently a protest against the alleged action of Minister 
Stevens as well as the new Government, and contains a notice of 
her appeal to the United States. The document was received 
exactly as it would have been received if it had come through the 
mail. The endorsement of its receipt upon the paper was made at 
the request of the individual who brought it, as evidence of its safe 
delivery. As to the ex-Queen's notice of her appeal to the United 
States, it was a matter of indifference to us. Such an appeal could 
not have been prevented, as the mail service was in operation as 
usual. That such a notice and our receipt of it without comment, 
should be made a foundation of a claim that we had submitted our 
right to exist as a Government to the United States, had never 
occurred to us until suggested by your Government. The protest is 
as follows : — 

" I, Liliuokalani, by the grace of God and under the Constitution 
of the Hawaiian Kingdom, Queen, do hereby solemnly protest 
against any and all acts done against myself and the constitutional 
Government of the Hawaiian Kingdom by certain persons claiming 
to have established a Provisional Government of and for this 
Kingdom. 

"That I yield to the superior force of the United States of 



342 EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 

America, whose Minister Plenipotentiary, His Excellency John L. 
Stevens, has caused United States troops to be landed at Honolulu, 
and declared that he would support the said Provisional Government. 

" Now, to avoid any collision of armed forces and perhaps the 
loss of life, I do under this protest and impelled by said force, yield 
my authority until such time as the Government of the United 
States shall, upon the facts being presented to it, undo the action of 
its representative and reinstate me in the authority which I claim as 
the constitutional sovereign of the Hawaiian Islands. 

" Done at Honolulu, the seventeenth day of January, A. D. 1893. 

" LILIUOKALANI, R. 

" Samuel Parker, Minister of Foreign Affairs. 
"WM. H. CORNWELL, Minister of Finance. 
" JNO. F. COLBURN, Minister of the Interior. 
"A. P. PETERSON, Attorney-General. 

" S. B. Dole and others composing the Provisional Govern- 
ment of the Hawaiian Islands. 

" (Endorsed.) Received by the hands of the late Cabinet, the 
seventeenth day of January, A. D. 1893. SANFORD B. Dole, 
Chairman of Executive Council of Provisional Government. ,, 

You may not be aware, but such is the fact, that at no time until 
the presentation of the claim of the President of the United States of 
his right to interfere in the internal affairs of this country by you 
on December 19th, has this Government been officially informed by 
the United States Government that any such course was contem- 
plated. And not until the publication of Mr. Gresham's letter to 
the President of the United States on the Hawaiian question, had 
we any reliable intimation of such a policy. The adherents of the 
ex-Queen have indeed claimed from time to time that such was the 
case, but we have never been able to attach serious importance to 
their rumors to that effect, feeling secure in our perfect diplomatic 



EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 343 

relations with your country, and relying upon the friendship and 
fairness of a Government whose dealings with us have ever shown 
full recognition of our independence as a sovereign power, without 
any tendency to take advantage of the disparity of strength between 
the two countries. If your contention that President Cleveland 
believes that this Government and the ex-Queen have submitted 
their respective claims to the sovereignty of this country, to the 
adjudication of the United States is correct, then, may I ask, when 
and where has the President held his court of arbitration ? This 
Government has had no notice of the sitting of such a tribunal and 
no opportunity of presenting evidence of its claims. If Mr. Blount's 
investigations were part of the proceedings of such a court, this 
Government did not know it and was never informed of it ; indeed, 
as I have mentioned above, we never knew, until the publication of 
Secretary Gresham's letter to President Cleveland a few weeks 
ago, that the American Executive had a policy of interference under 
contemplation. Even if we had known that Mr. Blount was authori- 
tatively acting as Commissioner to take evidence upon the question 
of the restoration of the ex-Queen, the methods adopted by him in 
making his investigations were, I submit, unsuitable to such an 
examination, or any examination upon which human interests were 
to be adjudicated. As I am reliably informed, he selected his 
witnesses and examined them in secret, freely using leading ques- 
tions, giving no opportunity for a cross-examination and often not 
permitting such explanations by witnesses themselves as they 
desired to make of evidence which he had drawn from them. It is 
hardly necessary for me to suggest that, under such a mode of 
examination, some witnesses would be almost helpless in the hands 
of an astute lawyer, and might be drawn into saying things which 
would be only half-truths, and standing alone would be misleading 
-or even false in effect. Is it likely that an investigation conducted 
in this manner could result in a fair, full and truthful statement of 
the case in point ? Surely the destinies of a friendly Government, 



344 EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALAXI. 

admitting by way of argument that the right of arbitration exists, 
may not be disposed of upon an ex-parte and secret investigation 
made without the knowledge of such Government, or an oppor- 
tunity by it to be heard, or even to know who the witnesses were. 

Mr. Blount came here as a stranger and at once entered upon 
his duties. He devoted himself to the work of collecting information, 
both by the examination of witnesses and the collection of statistics 
and other documentary matter, with great energy and industry, 
giving up substantially his whole time to its prosecution. He was 
here but a few months, and during that time was so occupied with 
this work that he had little opportunity left for receiving those 
impressions of the state of affairs which could best have come 
to him incidentally through a wide social intercourse with the 
people of the country and a personal acquaintance with its various 
communities and educational and industrial enterprises. He saw 
the country from his cottage in the center of Honolulu, mainly 
through the eyes of the witnesses whom he examined. Under 
these circumstances is it probable that the most earnest of men 
would be able to form a statement that could safely be relied upon 
as the basis of a decision upon the question of the standing of 
a Government ? 

In view, therefore, of all the facts in relation to the question of 
the President's authority to interfere, and concerning which the 
members of the Executive were actors and eye-witnesses, I am 
able to assure Your Excellency that by no action of this Govern- 
ment on the seventeenth day of January last, or since that time, 
has the authority devolved upon the President of the United States 
to interfere in the internal affairs of this country through any 
conscious act or expression of this Government with such an 
intention. 

You state in your communication: — 

"After a patient examination of Mr. Blount's reports, the Pres- 
ident is satisfied that the movement against the Queen, if not 



EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANL 345 

instigated, was encouraged and supported by the representative of 
this Government at Honolulu; that he promised in advance to aid 
her enemies in an effort to overthrow the Hawaiian Government and 
set up by force a new Government in its place ; that he kept his 
promise by causing, a detachment of troops to be landed from the 
" Boston, " on the 16th of January, 1893, and by recognizing the 
Provisional Government the next day, when it was too feeble to 
defend itself, and the constitutional Government was able to suc- 
cessfully maintain its authority against any threatening force other 
than that of the United States already landed." 

Without entering into a discussion of the facts, I beg to state in 
reply that I am unable to judge of the correctness of Mr. Blount's 
report, from which the President's conclusions were drawn, as I 
have had no opportunity of examining such report. But I desire 
to specifically and emphatically deny the correctness of each and 
every one of the allegations of fact contained in the above-quoted 
statement ; yet, as the President has arrived at a positive opinion 
in his own mind in the matter, I will refer to it from his own stand- 
point. 

My position is briefly this : If the American forces illegally 
assisted the revolutionists in the establishment of the Provisional 
Government, that Government is not responsible for their wrong 
doing. It was purely a private matter tor discipline between the 
United States Government and its own officers. There is, I submit, 
no precedent in international law for the theory that such action of 
the American troops has conferred upon the United States authority 
over the internal affairs of this Government. Should it be true, as 
you have suggested, that the American Government made itself 
responsible to the Queen, who, it is alleged, lost her throne through 
such action, that is not a matter for me to discuss, except to submit 
that, if such be the case, it is a matter for the American Govern- 
ment and her to settle between them. This Government, a recog- 
nized sovereign power, equal in authority with the United States 



346 EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 

Government and enjoying perfect diplomatic relations with it, can 
not be destroyed by it for the sake of discharging its obligations to 
the Queen. 

Upon these grounds, Mr. Minister, in behalf of my Government, 
I respectfully protest against the usurpation of its authority as sug- 
gested by the language of your communication. 

It is difficult for a stranger like yourself, and much more for the 
President of the United States, with his pressing responsibilities, his 
crowding cares and his want of familiarity with the condition and 
history of this country and the inner life of its people, to obtain a 
clear insight into the real state of affairs and to understand the 
social currents, the race feelings and the customs and traditions, 
which all contribute to the political outlook. We, who have grown 
up here, or who have adopted this country as our home, are con- 
scious of the difficulty of maintaining stable government here. A 
community which is made up of five races, of which the larger part 
but dimly appreciates the significance and value of representative 
institutions, offers political problems which may well tax the wisdom 
of the most experienced statesman. 

For long years a large and influential part of this community, 
including many foreigners and native Hawaiians, have observed 
with deep regret the retrogressive tendencies of the Hawaiian mon- 
archy, and have honorably striven against them, and have sought, 
through legislative work, the newspapers and by personal appeal 
and individual influence, to support and emphasize the representative 
features of the monarchy, and to create a public sentiment favorable 
thereto, and thereby to avert the catastrophe that seemed inevitable 
if such tendencies were not restrained. These efforts have been 
met by the last two sovereigns in a spirit of aggressive hostility. 
The struggle became at length a well-defined issue between royal 
prerogative and the right of representative government, and most 
bitterly and unscrupulously has it been carried on in the interests of 
the former. The King's privilege of importing goods for his own use 



: ,4i' i .4- 




EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 349 

without paying the duties thereon, was abused to the extent of 
admitting large quantities of liquors with which to debauch the elec- 
torate. He promoted the election of Government officers, both 
executive and judicial, to the Legislative Assembly, and freely ap- 
pointed to office elected members thereof. In the Legislature of 
1886, of which I was a member, the party supporting the Govern- 
ment was largely in the majority, and nearly every member of such 
majority held some appointment from the Government, and some of 
them as many as two or three, thereby effectually placing the legis- 
lative branch of the Government under the personal and absolute 
control of the King. The constitutional encroachments, lawless 
extravagance and scandalous and open sales of patronage and privi- 
lege to the highest bidder by Kalakaua brought on at length the 
revolution of 1887, which had the full sympathy and moral support 
of all the diplomatic representatives in Honolulu, including Minister 
Merrill, who was, at that time, President Cleveland's Minister here. 
This revolution was not an annexation movement in any sense, but 
tended towards an independent republic, but when it had the mon- 
archy in itc power, conservative counsel prevailed, and a new lease 
of life was allowed that institution on the condition of royal fidelity 
to the new Constitution which was then promulgated and greatly 
curtailed the powers of the sovereign. Kalakaua was not faithful 
to this compact, and sought as far as possible to evade its stipula- 
tions. The insurrection of 1889 was connived at by him, and the 
household guards under his control were not allowed to take part in 
suppressing it. The Princess Liliuokalani was in full sympathy with 
this movement, being a party to it, and furnishing her suburban resi- 
dence to the insurgents for their meetings. The arrangements were 
then made and the insurgents marched thence for their attack upon 
the Government. The affair was suppressed in a lew hours of 
fighting, with some loss of life to the insurgents, by the party which 
carried through the revolution of 1887. 

The ex-Queen's rule was even more reckless and retrogressive 



35o EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 

than her brother's. Less politic than he, and with less knowledge* 
of affairs, she had more determination and was equally unreliable 
and deficient in moral principle. She, to all appearance, unhesi- 
tatingly took the oath of office to govern according to the Constitu- 
tion, and evidently regarding it merely as a formal ceremony, 
began, according to her own testimony to Mr. Blount, to lay her 
plans to destroy the Constitution and replace it with one of her own 
creation. With a like disregard of its sanctions, she made the most 
determined efforts to control all the appointments to office, both 
executive and judicial. The session of the Legislature of 1892 was 
the longest that had ever occurred in our history, and was charac- 
terized by a most obstinate struggle for personal control of the 
Government and the Legislature on the part of the Queen ; this 
was strenuously resisted by the opposition. During this contest 
four ministerial cabinets were appointed and unseated, and the 
lottery franchise bill, which had been withdrawn early in the 
session for want of sufficient support, was at the last moment, 
when the opposition was weakened by the absence of several of 
its members, again brought forward and passed through the exercise 
of improper and illegitimate influences upon the Legislators, among 
which were personal appeals on the part of the Queen to them. 
The Cabinet which represented the opposition and the majority 
of the Legislature, which the Queen had been compelled to appoint, 
was unseated by similar means, and, with a new Cabinet of her 
own choice, the Legislature was prorogued. This lottery franchise 
was of a character corresponding with similar institutions which 
have been driven out of every State of the American Union by an 
indignant public sentiment. If it had been established here it 
would in a brief period have obtained full control of the Government 
patronage, and corrupted the social and political life of the people. 

Although the situation at the close of the session was deeply dis- 
couraging to the community, it was accepted without any intention of 
meeting it other than by legal means. The attempted coup d'etat 



EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 351 

of the Queen followed, and her ministers, threatened with violence, 
fled to the citizens for assistance and protection ; then it was that the 
uprising against the Queen took place, and, gathering force from day 
to day, resulted in the proclamation of the Provisional Government 
and the abrogation of the monarchy on the third day thereafter. 

No man can correctly say that the Queen owed her downfall to 
the interference of American forces. The revolution was carried 
through by the representatives, now largely reinforced, of the same 
public sentiment which forced the monarchy to its knees in 1887 ; 
which suppressed the insurrection of 1889, and which, for twenty 
years, had been battling for representative government in this 
country. If the American forces had been absent the revolution 
would have taken place, for the sufficient cause for it had nothing 
to do with their presence. 

I, therefore, in all friendship for the Government of the United 
States, which you represent, and desiring to cherish the good-will of 
the great American people, submit the answer of my Government 
to your proposition, and ask that you will transmit the same to the 
President of the United States for his consideration. 

Though the Provisional Government is far from being "a great 
power " and could not long resist the forces of the United States in 
hostile attack, we deem our position to be impregnable under all 
legal precedents, under the principles of diplomatic intercourse and 
in the forum of conscience. We have done your Government no 
wrong ; no charge of discourtesy is or can be brought against us. 
Our only issue with your people has been that because we revered 
its institutions of civil liberty, we have desired to have them ex- 
tended to our own distracted country, and because we honor its flag, 
and deeming that its benefits and authoritative presence would be 
for the best interests of all of our people, we have stood ready to add 
our country, a new star, to its glory, and to consummate a union 
which we believed would be as much for the benefit of your country 
as ours. If this is an offense, we plead guilty to it 



352 EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 

I am instructed to inform you, Mr. Minister, that the ProvisionaV 
Government of the Hawaiian Islands respectfully and unhesitat- 
ingly declines to entertain the proposition of the President of the 
United States that it should surrender its authority to the ex-Queen. 

This answer is made not only upon the grounds hereinbefore 
set forth, but upon our sense of duty and loyalty to the brave 
men whose commission we hold, who have faithfully stood by 
us in the hour of trial and whose will is the only earthly authority 
we recognize. We can not betray the sacred trust they have 
placed in our hands, a trust which represents the cause of Christian 
civilization in the interests of the whole people of these Islands. 

The success with which the Provisional Government 
has administered the affairs of Hawaii, and the dignity, 
ability and admirable temper with which President Dole 
dealt with the question in issue, whether raised by the 
Hawaiian royalists or by the United States officials, had 
gained a strong predominance of American public senti- 
ment. The fidelity and candor with which Minister Willis 
reported to the Government at Washington the real situa- 
tion at Honolulu, his strong endorsement of the character 
of the men constituting and supporting the Provisional 
Government, and the reluctance whicti he manifested to 
carry out extreme instructions, also tended to strengthen 
public opinion in a correct view of Hawaiian affairs. In the 
meanwhile the United States Senate, by formal resolution, 
instructed its Committee on Foreign Relations to investigate 
"whether any irregularities have occurred in the diplomatic 
or other intercourse between the United States and Hawaii 
in relation to recent political revolution in Hawaii." 

This, Committee was authorized to send for persons 



EFFORT TO RESTORE LILIUOKALANI. 353 

and papers, and to administer oaths to witnesses. It 
made an extended and thorough investigation, occupying 
several weeks, examining numerous witnesses, those 
whom the Committee deemed most competent to give 
testimony on the subject. Through its Chairman, the 
Hon. John T. Morgan, the majority of the Committee 
made an elaborate report. The following extracts from 
that document cover the main points which had been 
in controversy between the Provisional Government and 
the supporters of the fallen monarchy, and are conclusive 
as to what should be the future attitude and policy of 
the United States towards the American colony and its 
associates in Hawaii: — 

When a crown falls in any kingdom of the Western Hemisphere, it is pul- 
verized, and when a scepter departs, it departs forever ; and American opinion can 
not sustain any American ruler in the attempt to restore them, no matter how vir- 
tuous and sincere the reasons may be that seem to justify him. 

The fact can not be ignored that this revolutionary movement of Liliuokalani, 
which had its development in the selection of a new cabinet to supplant one which 
had the support of all the conservative elements in the island, was set on foot and 
accomplished during the absence of the American Minister on board the ship 
" Boston " during the ten days which preceded the prorogation of the Legislature. 
The astonishment with which this movement was received by the American emi- 
grants and other white people residing in Hawaii, and its inauguration in the ab- 
sence of the " Boston " and of the American Minister, show that those people, with 
great anxiety, recognized the fact that it was directed against them and their inter- 
ests and welfare, and that when it was completed they would become its victims. 
These convictions excited the serious apprehensions of all the white people in those 
islands that a crisis was brought about in which not only their rights in Hawaii, 
and under the constitution, were to be injuriousiy affected, but that the ultimate 
result would be that they would be driven from the islands or, remaining there, 
would be put at the mercy of those who chose to prey upon their property. 

This class of people, who were intended to be ostracised, supply niiie-tenths 
of the entire tax receipts of the kingdom ; and they were conscious that the pur- 
pose was to inflict taxation upon them without representation, or else to confiscate 
their estates and drive them out of the country. This produced alarm and agita- 
tion, which resulted in the counter movement set on foot by the people to meet and 
overcome the revolution which Liliuokalani had projected and had endeavored to 
accomplish. Her Ministers were conscious of the fact that any serious resistance 
to her revolutionary movement (of which they had full knowledge before they 
were inducted into office) would disappoint the expectations of the Queen and 
would result in the overthrow of the executive government; and, while they had 
evidently promised the Queen that they would support her in her effort to abolish 



354 EFFORT TO RTSUORE LILIUOKALANL 

the constitution of 1887 and substitute one which they had secretly assisted in 
preparing, when the moment of the trial came they abandoned her — they broke 
faith with her. The Queen's Ministers took fright and gave information to ths 
people of the existence of the movements and concealed purposes of the Queen 
and of her demands upon them to join her in the promulgation of the constitution, 
and they appealed to the Committee of Safety for protection, and continued in that 
attitude until they saw that the kindled wrath of the people would not take the 
direction of violence and bloodshed without the provocation of a serious necessity. 
Being satisfied that they could trust to the forbearance of the people, who 
were looking to the protection of their interests and had no desire for strife and 
bloodshed, they began to finesse En a political way to effect a compromise between 
the people and the Queen, and they induced her to make the proclamation of her 
intentions to postpone the completion of her revolutionary purposes, which was 
circulated in Honolulu on Monday morning. These men, whose conduct can not 
be characterized as anything less than perfidious, hastened to give to the President 
of the United States false and misleading statements of the facts leading up to, 
attending, and succeeding this revolution. To do this they made deceptive and 
misleading statements to Mr. Blount. Upon them must rest the odium of having 
encouraged the Queen in her revolutionary intentions ; of having then abandoned 
her in a moment of apparent danger ; of having thrown themselves upon the 
mercy of the people, and then of making an attempt, through falsehood and mis- 
representation, to regain power in the Government of Hawaii, which the people 
would naturally forever deny them. 

The diplomatic officers of the United States in Hawaii have the right to much 
larger liberty of action in respect to the internal affairs of that country than would 
be the . case with any other country with which we have no peculiar or special 
relations. 

But the Government of the United States had the right to keep its troops in 
Honolulu until these conditions were performed, and the Government of Hawaii 
couid certainly acquiesce in such a policy without endangering its independence or 
detracting from its dignity. This was done, and the troops from the Boston 
camped on shore for several months. The precise hour when or the precise con- 
ditions under which the American Minister recognized the Provisional Govern- 
ment is not a matter of material importance. It was his duty, at the earliest safe 
period, to assist by his recognition in the termination of the interregnum, so that 
citizens of the United States might be safely remitted to the care of that govern- 
ment for the security of their rights. As e oon as he was convinced that the Pro- 
visional Government was secure against overthrow, it was his duty to recognize 

the rehabilitated state. 

* * * * * * * * * * * 

Whether this was done an hour or two sooner or later could make no sub- 
stantial difference as to his rights or duties, if he was satisfied that the movement 
was safe against reversal. If no question of the annexation of Hawaii to the 
United States had existed, the conduct of the American Minister in giving official 
recognition to the Provisional Government would not have been the subject of 
adverse criticism. But the presence of that question and his anxious advocacy of 
annexation did not relieve him from the duty or abridge his right to call for the 
troops on the "Boston" to protect the citizens of the United States during an 
interregnum in the office of chief executive of Hawaii. They were not to be put 
into a state of outlawry and peril if the Minister had been opposed to annexation, 
nor could his desire on that subject in any way affect their rights or his duty. 
He gave to them the protection they had the right to demand, and, in respect of 
his action up to this point, so far as it related to Hawaii, his opinions as to annex- 
ation have not affected the attitude of the United States Government, and the 
committee find no cause of censure either against Minister Stevens or Capt. Wiltse. 
of the " Boston." 



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